Armed Forces Week: Lord of the Rings Videogames Chat (with gamer Kyla Thornton, Sydney superfan Daniel Lewis & Talking SMAC's Josh Skaar)

[00:00:00] If you do not find a way, no one will.

[00:00:03] You have my soul.

[00:00:06] And you have my power.

[00:00:09] And mine.

[00:00:11] The Earth stands upon the brink of destruction.

[00:00:17] If you will unite or you will fall.

[00:00:21] It's a Jacked Up Review Show

[00:00:38] It's a Jacked Up Review Show

[00:00:41] It's a Jacked Up Review Show

[00:00:45] It's a Jacked Up Review Show

[00:00:53] It's a Jacked Up Review Show

[00:00:56] It's a Jacked Up Review Show

[00:01:00] Jacked Up Review Show

[00:01:18] Alright, welcome. Welcome all.

[00:01:20] I'm your host, Sully. And with me, I have

[00:01:23] a newcomer, Lord of the Rings Superfan

[00:01:27] and I'm going to introduce you to the

[00:01:31] new guest, Sully.

[00:01:32] Welcome.

[00:01:33] Thanks for having me anytime.

[00:01:35] I was actually surprised at how many people I was able to

[00:01:38] interest in this subject, which is good because this has been

[00:01:40] kind of in the works for a while. I was just like, Hey, you know,

[00:01:43] I don't, I see people talking about, you know,

[00:01:46] different movies and books, but very rarely do I see them

[00:01:50] actually discuss like the book that inspired the movie or

[00:01:53] video games, spinoff or even a comic book continuation.

[00:01:57] Yeah, these games are in a funky sort of category because

[00:02:02] there's the obviously people would play them.

[00:02:05] There's the book fans that play the games and then there's the

[00:02:09] the people who obviously saw the films. Parts even.

[00:02:13] And the cartoons. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:02:16] I covered a bunch of those on here, but you know, there's

[00:02:18] always something new and I was able to actually cover

[00:02:21] a comic book that adapted the it was distributed throughout

[00:02:25] parts of Spain.

[00:02:29] Actually, no, Mexico and they it was adapting the 70s Ralph

[00:02:33] Botsky Lord of the Rings.

[00:02:36] Wonderful.

[00:02:37] Yeah, that was a cracker.

[00:02:42] The, did you say the Buczy cartoon?

[00:02:45] Yeah, yeah.

[00:02:46] Yeah, like they adapted it into a comic and it was very hard to

[00:02:51] find. It was a free parter.

[00:02:53] Now is that the is that the rotoscope for one or it was I get

[00:02:58] confused with this one? Yes, that's the one the one that

[00:03:01] went to theaters.

[00:03:03] I mean there was also one that adapted the most of the books

[00:03:10] and but it was in also in comic form.

[00:03:14] And then they released it.

[00:03:16] I mean, it was a comic book.

[00:03:18] But then they, I think it was throughout the 90s and then they

[00:03:21] released it, re-released it to capitalize on the success of

[00:03:24] the movie.

[00:03:26] But I read that and that was also just very awesome how someone,

[00:03:30] you know, if you couldn't comprehend that book.

[00:03:33] And you needed a picture book with detailed text.

[00:03:35] That was probably the way to do it.

[00:03:37] Instead of.

[00:03:38] You know, Lord of the Rings.

[00:03:40] Story told in a comic book format.

[00:03:43] I wonder if it would be.

[00:03:45] There's a lot of free comic book sites online.

[00:03:47] You can also find them on and I'd only recommend just make sure

[00:03:50] you have an ad blocker because they're spam galore.

[00:03:53] All righty.

[00:03:55] Wicked.

[00:03:57] I don't know if you.

[00:04:01] I don't know.

[00:04:04] I was going to say, there's a game coming out just today.

[00:04:08] In fact, I believe it's coming out today.

[00:04:11] It's called return to Moria.

[00:04:14] Oh wow.

[00:04:16] And your play is.

[00:04:18] Your play is like a bunch of dwarves and I think the story is.

[00:04:24] I see what you've talked about. Wow.

[00:04:27] Yeah, it's in the set in the fourth page and I think your dwarves

[00:04:31] reclaiming, you know, Moria from the orcs and.

[00:04:35] You know, the other bad, bad things that look there.

[00:04:38] I think it's coming out today.

[00:04:39] I could be.

[00:04:40] I've been a long before.

[00:04:42] It says yeah.

[00:04:44] October 24 so maybe tomorrow, but.

[00:04:47] We will see.

[00:04:49] It's for Windows PS5 Xbox series XS.

[00:04:53] So wow.

[00:04:55] Totally escaped me.

[00:04:57] That is actually very cool.

[00:05:00] Yeah.

[00:05:02] So, just have to sell a couple more copies than the,

[00:05:06] than the Golem game, the recent Golem game.

[00:05:09] Yeah, sure.

[00:05:10] It'll do well.

[00:05:11] We'll try it on that one briefly.

[00:05:14] So.

[00:05:16] So, we did this chat initially with another Lord of the Rings

[00:05:20] podcast and then they decided to.

[00:05:23] Be dick bags and decide, Hey, you know, we're just not feeling it.

[00:05:27] Don't ever post that episode.

[00:05:29] I was like, okay, you were really enjoying the experience,

[00:05:32] but all respect your wishes, even though this is a waste of my time.

[00:05:37] Well, you'll have to give me the name of the podcast in the

[00:05:40] chat later.

[00:05:42] I'm curious.

[00:05:43] What's a real shame is despite that awful experience,

[00:05:46] they are really cool podcast.

[00:05:48] There was this one that was just like, come on man, you know.

[00:05:52] It is a bummer.

[00:05:54] Even if I'm not crazy about the final episode,

[00:05:56] I want to put on a show.

[00:05:58] So whatever, but so there's a lot of Lord of the Rings video

[00:06:02] games.

[00:06:03] There's just, I'm a millennial, but you know what,

[00:06:06] what was your before we get started?

[00:06:08] What was your intro into the Lord of the Rings token verse?

[00:06:11] I read the Hobbit three times growing up and.

[00:06:14] Watch the movies a bunch of times then later went back and.

[00:06:17] I mean, I had seen the animated Lord of the Rings also,

[00:06:20] but I.

[00:06:21] I finally read the Lord of the Rings books themselves like.

[00:06:26] As I got older, I struggled with the similar alien,

[00:06:29] but I just always adored every aspect of it all.

[00:06:32] And I mainly also played the PlayStation 2.

[00:06:38] Video game adaptations of two towers and return to the king where

[00:06:42] you could unlock characters and.

[00:06:44] Go on different difficulties and select which ones and then they

[00:06:48] had.

[00:06:49] Conquest, which was by pandemic who made the Star Wars battle

[00:06:53] front where you, you know, do a capture the flag equivalent.

[00:06:56] And then there was also the third age,

[00:06:59] which it was kind of their answer to doing electronic arts

[00:07:04] and then they had to do it.

[00:07:05] And so, you know,

[00:07:07] when you're playing the game,

[00:07:08] you know,

[00:07:09] I'm not going to say that I'm going to say that I'm going to

[00:07:12] play the game.

[00:07:13] But I'm going to say that I'm going to say that I'm going to

[00:07:16] play the game.

[00:07:17] And then let's do.

[00:07:18] RPG you take turns, you know,

[00:07:20] whacking somebody, you know,

[00:07:22] back and forth like a board game,

[00:07:24] but it didn't completely work because it's like, okay,

[00:07:27] we have to believe that these other doors and Elvin

[00:07:30] warriors are alongside Gandalf as he's fighting the Balrog.

[00:07:33] And then you know,

[00:07:34] we're actually having you know,

[00:07:36] yeah,

[00:07:37] that game was like a weird hodgepodge of different.

[00:07:39] Like they had great world building in it.

[00:07:41] They had some great, you know,

[00:07:43] they wrote some good sort of add ons to the obviously

[00:07:48] story that everybody knows,

[00:07:49] but it was a bit of a bit of a mixed bag of game elements

[00:07:54] going on.

[00:07:55] But as far as my first,

[00:07:58] my first exposure to the water,

[00:08:01] the rings sort of story.

[00:08:04] I was six.

[00:08:06] Yeah, like five or six when the movie came out,

[00:08:08] the first one.

[00:08:09] Oh wow.

[00:08:10] I saw that.

[00:08:11] I saw it under the cinema with my parents and I didn't know

[00:08:14] what to make of it,

[00:08:15] but it did scare me a lot.

[00:08:18] They wanted to see it and you're like, I guess I'm going.

[00:08:21] Yeah.

[00:08:22] Yeah.

[00:08:23] But then this was in the times of VHS.

[00:08:28] Uh, tape.

[00:08:29] So we had,

[00:08:30] we had a VHS of the Fellowship of the Ring and I would just

[00:08:33] watch it as I grew up.

[00:08:36] Just on repeat till I wore the tape up.

[00:08:39] And then of course like the next,

[00:08:41] next Christmas two towers came out and then that's when

[00:08:44] this sort of roll out of the video games started happening.

[00:08:48] Um,

[00:08:49] and I didn't think I had a console for a couple of years

[00:08:52] after that,

[00:08:53] but when I finally got one,

[00:08:55] I,

[00:08:56] I made it my business to sort of get,

[00:08:58] get the, you know,

[00:08:59] PlayStation two towers game and the return of the king and all of

[00:09:03] that sort of stuff.

[00:09:04] So kind of,

[00:09:07] I don't know if it's what,

[00:09:09] what are the rings games is concerned?

[00:09:11] I kind of did them all in like chronological order as they

[00:09:14] were coming out.

[00:09:15] Speed.

[00:09:17] And it's a fun feeling too when you kind of accomplish all

[00:09:21] these impossible tasks.

[00:09:23] So I tried some of the other ones and.

[00:09:27] It is important to note for all the token experts. Yes,

[00:09:31] there was plenty before and after produced with or without,

[00:09:36] you know, the Warner Brothers or MGM licenses.

[00:09:41] And there was a Hobbit game.

[00:09:44] Bruce back in like the early 2000s.

[00:09:47] I had it on my father's PC.

[00:09:50] Wasn't very good.

[00:09:52] Oh man.

[00:09:54] It was by sea.

[00:09:56] Universal.

[00:09:57] That was great.

[00:09:58] Oh really?

[00:09:59] I tried, but.

[00:10:01] That was, yeah,

[00:10:02] I think it was like a 2003 thing.

[00:10:04] So I think is everyone was waiting for the last movie to

[00:10:08] come out.

[00:10:09] I was playing playing that.

[00:10:11] It is a pretty weird thing.

[00:10:13] But like design wise,

[00:10:15] it's pretty like,

[00:10:16] you know,

[00:10:17] it's good.

[00:10:18] It's accessible for kids.

[00:10:20] It got me to read the book afterwards.

[00:10:22] Okay.

[00:10:23] Well, some one good thing about it.

[00:10:25] Yeah.

[00:10:26] Totally.

[00:10:27] I just found the task and voice acting and.

[00:10:30] Glitches to be very irritating.

[00:10:32] I think it was this close to one to throw it in the trash.

[00:10:35] But yeah,

[00:10:36] it was owned by.

[00:10:38] You know, universal.

[00:10:39] That's the Sierra by Vinty.

[00:10:41] Games thing.

[00:10:42] So that.

[00:10:43] Ironically.

[00:10:45] Well, coincidentally,

[00:10:46] there was a fellowship of the ring game.

[00:10:48] That they were issued.

[00:10:49] And it.

[00:10:51] You know, it was coming out at the same time as.

[00:10:54] The actual movies.

[00:10:56] And so yeah.

[00:10:58] It's just so weird how they're trying to make it look like the

[00:11:01] movie without actually looking like the movie.

[00:11:03] And so I'm sure a lot of people were disappointed.

[00:11:06] But yeah.

[00:11:07] There was a lot of that.

[00:11:09] There was a bit of that going around because they were making that

[00:11:12] fellowship of the ring game.

[00:11:13] As you said, you know, when the film was still in production,

[00:11:16] but there was another.

[00:11:18] I was talking to one of the designers of the two towers game,

[00:11:23] which came out the year later.

[00:11:25] This is a couple of years ago. I was talking to him.

[00:11:28] And he said that there was a lot of people who were disappointed

[00:11:31] about the movie.

[00:11:32] And so I was like, I don't know.

[00:11:34] I don't know.

[00:11:35] I don't know.

[00:11:36] I don't know.

[00:11:37] This is a couple of years ago. I was talking to him.

[00:11:39] And he said that there was supposed to be like a fellowship of

[00:11:42] the ring.

[00:11:43] Video game in the style of.

[00:11:45] The games that came later.

[00:11:47] Two towers and return.

[00:11:48] I didn't see that.

[00:11:49] But that's cool to know someone who can actually confirm.

[00:11:52] And.

[00:11:53] I think it's since you're in.

[00:11:55] Any, you probably encountered a bunch of people who've worked on

[00:11:58] all kinds of giant entertainment productions.

[00:12:00] Yeah, for sure. For sure.

[00:12:02] A lot of them are in the film game now.

[00:12:04] A lot of the people that worked at Stormfront studios and the

[00:12:08] in EA back in the day that they all went on to have,

[00:12:12] you know, successful movie careers.

[00:12:14] Because I think the production on those two was a bit,

[00:12:17] was a bit dicey and some of them couldn't.

[00:12:20] You know,

[00:12:21] I think they were, you know,

[00:12:23] They were like, oh, I'm sorry.

[00:12:24] I can't quite see themselves working in that field.

[00:12:26] Oh, I imagine.

[00:12:27] And.

[00:12:30] You never know.

[00:12:31] Just what's going to be expected and what changes are going to

[00:12:35] happen. Yeah.

[00:12:36] Oh yeah. And I think with those.

[00:12:38] The two towers returning the king, especially,

[00:12:41] that was the ultimate test because they were having to make a

[00:12:44] video game.

[00:12:45] Based on a movie that.

[00:12:47] Was still.

[00:12:48] In production.

[00:12:50] So all the, all the designs and all of the,

[00:12:52] all the references they had to work with, they were getting them.

[00:12:56] They were just like scans of photographs from where to workshop

[00:13:00] and, and the, you know, the studios in New Zealand.

[00:13:03] So they didn't really have like a.

[00:13:05] A clear picture of what everything was going to look like.

[00:13:10] As they were doing it, but I think they did a pretty good job.

[00:13:13] Those games are.

[00:13:14] Really fun.

[00:13:16] It's lovely and keep in mind guys, you know, they were.

[00:13:19] Way away to digital was not involved with the games,

[00:13:22] but they were doing the motion capture, which is so wild.

[00:13:25] Cause now it's second nature. You see it on a call of duty.

[00:13:28] Game or an avatar type blockbuster.

[00:13:31] Hmm.

[00:13:32] It's yeah. I mean, hell they.

[00:13:35] When I saw industrial light magic trying to brag, hey, you

[00:13:38] know, we were perfecting it. I'm like, no,

[00:13:40] you're a little late to the party guys.

[00:13:44] I'm like, you know, with the warcraft now,

[00:13:47] we already did this not only with little of the rings,

[00:13:50] but also with other blockbusters like iRobot.

[00:13:54] Oh man, that's a throwback.

[00:13:58] I robot indeed.

[00:14:02] On the subject of mo cap, there was, there was a.

[00:14:06] I've got an animation that was.

[00:14:10] One of the animators that was working on the two towers game.

[00:14:13] They were throwing out ideas of other characters, you know, to

[00:14:16] include cause the thing in that game, you got Aragon,

[00:14:19] Legolas and Gimli. You just play.

[00:14:21] Play those guys as you're going through, you know, the Helms deep

[00:14:25] and Rohan and all those sorts of stories.

[00:14:27] But one of the animators.

[00:14:30] He animated Gollum, but it was at that stage they hadn't

[00:14:35] designed golem yet in New Zealand.

[00:14:37] So he just did this sort of speculative, you know,

[00:14:40] little blue frog creature, you know, that could that could spar

[00:14:43] with the Urukine stuff. But that was, you know, of course,

[00:14:46] scrapped because I think they wanted to save golem for the

[00:14:48] for the big screen.

[00:14:51] But yeah, like you say, all, all, you know, mo cap stuff.

[00:15:00] Yeah, very groundbreaking, very intriguing.

[00:15:03] Yeah, I don't have too many, too many tales about the

[00:15:06] fellowship of the ring game. I kind of sped through that.

[00:15:09] That was a tough, tough old one.

[00:15:12] Yeah, it was before they did the battle for Middle Earth

[00:15:16] games, which were basically, you know, selects, just have

[00:15:20] multiple armies attack, you know, you're playing God.

[00:15:24] Yeah, those were good. Those are very good.

[00:15:29] And just, yeah, very accessible and you can just spend

[00:15:33] hours and hours and hours.

[00:15:36] Oh yeah.

[00:15:38] I don't think I would have enough RAM on whatever machine

[00:15:40] I was borrowing at the time.

[00:15:42] Yeah, that's a difficult thing with all that stuff.

[00:15:44] I'm a sort of Mac guy and you know, when I was a kid,

[00:15:48] obviously I didn't have much of a choice on what

[00:15:51] computer platform we had. So I couldn't run most of those

[00:15:54] games until I was in like my teens or, you know, a bit

[00:15:58] later on. But like to this day, I still see people

[00:16:01] modding those old battle for Middle Earth games and

[00:16:04] adding their own factions and voices and things like

[00:16:08] that. So, you know, it had legs evidently and sort of

[00:16:15] continues to excite people and yeah, I think it's great.

[00:16:21] I think there was a, there was a, go ahead.

[00:16:25] Oh yeah, totally.

[00:16:27] I was just going to say that you mentioned the

[00:16:30] Conquest game. I think there's someone modding

[00:16:33] that at the moment.

[00:16:35] It was so ridiculous how it got some pretty bad reviews.

[00:16:38] I'm like, I don't know what you guys are smoking this.

[00:16:43] Yeah, it was pretty good. It looked like a million bucks.

[00:16:46] It looked great.

[00:16:50] And you know, the taking that battlefront sort of

[00:16:55] gameplay and mixing it in with the, you know, the

[00:16:58] different armies of Middle Earth. That was a no brainer.

[00:17:01] Who doesn't want to do that?

[00:17:04] Right. And you play as all the heroes and villains that

[00:17:07] you've always wanted to unleash their powers. I mean, that's

[00:17:10] again, the battlefront game engine was the perfect

[00:17:13] category for that to, you know, pandemic games, I think

[00:17:18] got acquired by EA but, and I know EA is kind of rivaled

[00:17:21] with Activision in terms of pissing off a bunch of people,

[00:17:24] but that's a whole different story.

[00:17:27] I didn't play Ergon's Quest. I know

[00:17:32] that was kind of one of those where it's, it's like

[00:17:37] a cartoonish version, like almost borderline,

[00:17:41] hackneyed anime kind of looking for more kids.

[00:17:45] And then, you know, I was always seeing War in the

[00:17:49] North and the Shadow of Mordor and Shadow of War

[00:17:53] games, which were M rated, you know, for extra gore

[00:17:56] and those were kind of their own take on it just

[00:18:00] in general, like they're kind of doing what the Rings of

[00:18:03] Power show we're doing where it's like, okay, so

[00:18:07] they're not adapting everything from the movies, but

[00:18:10] they're trying to be consistent at the same time while

[00:18:13] also respectful to the book readers.

[00:18:16] So you know, it's a tough line to walk. How do you make

[00:18:19] everyone happy? I did want to play the Lego Lord of

[00:18:22] the Rings games, but I never got a chance. I did

[00:18:25] however play plenty of other Lego games.

[00:18:29] Yeah, I played the Lego ones. Those were good.

[00:18:33] They did like a Lego, they did the Lord of the Rings

[00:18:36] trilogy and then they did a Hobbit Lego, which

[00:18:41] I think collected the first two films and then

[00:18:44] they didn't have any, they didn't have any battle of

[00:18:48] the five armies levels, which I think maybe

[00:18:52] yeah, I think I was probably telling of how that

[00:18:56] particular movie was done.

[00:18:59] Yeah, I think that's the same way to keep it there.

[00:19:04] I mean, yeah, I mean, there should be so many more

[00:19:10] Lord of the Rings games at this rate. Really? I

[00:19:13] mean, I think it's just because did chalk it up

[00:19:17] to those few games like Aragorn's Quest and

[00:19:21] stuff that kind of missed the mark a little bit, although

[00:19:25] it was probably fun for kids. I mean, when I

[00:19:28] even saw Return of the King in theaters back in

[00:19:31] the day, there was even, that was kind of when

[00:19:35] you started seeing ads for all kinds of other stuff

[00:19:37] like coming to HBO or TNT this fall. I would

[00:19:40] see ads for cable TV shows. I would see ads

[00:19:42] for video games and they played a bunch of

[00:19:46] PlayStation 2 ads and they also heavily

[00:19:50] promoted the Lord of the Rings video games. So

[00:19:52] I was just like, see that's some, that's where I

[00:19:55] think inter advertising kind of really began

[00:19:58] before the internet took over, before people

[00:20:01] were trying to come up with the next YouTube

[00:20:03] or TikTok.

[00:20:05] Yeah, no, I didn't even realize that

[00:20:10] the main Lord of the Rings online game has

[00:20:13] still been active. I thought I got shut down, but

[00:20:16] I had that mistaken with the other Warner

[00:20:18] Brothers own property, the Matrix. I was

[00:20:20] like, oh okay.

[00:20:22] Yeah, the Lord of the Rings online is, you know,

[00:20:26] by the time that I came around to it, it was

[00:20:28] probably in 2014, it had already been going

[00:20:32] for years and years and years and it's,

[00:20:35] and I still see it getting updated every

[00:20:38] once in a while now.

[00:20:40] Yeah, it's changed all the licenses, Midway

[00:20:42] and Turbine were the main guys and then

[00:20:44] they passed it over to Warner Brothers

[00:20:46] Interactive and then, how, Daybreak Games

[00:20:49] company I think is supervising it, they're

[00:20:52] like Partis Sony and Oversol and another

[00:20:57] initial online game back in O-Free.

[00:20:59] So I do find it interesting how all these

[00:21:02] different other companies, I mean, it's

[00:21:05] even more mind blowing how MGM owned

[00:21:08] the rights to the Hobbit and now MGM

[00:21:10] is now owned by Amazon who now also

[00:21:13] owns, you know, The Rings of Power

[00:21:15] and I'm interested in seeing what future

[00:21:19] stuff can bring because I know they got an

[00:21:21] anime and development with Miranda Otto

[00:21:25] coming back at ZO and Brian Cox being the

[00:21:27] narrator and I just have no idea where

[00:21:31] this franchise is going to go next.

[00:21:33] I hope to God they never remake it though.

[00:21:36] Yeah, I always, every time I see an update,

[00:21:40] you know, a lot of it is a lot of the

[00:21:42] stuff that I see is seems like speculation

[00:21:46] but I just, I hope that they refrain from

[00:21:50] trying to rehash Lord of the Rings because it's

[00:21:53] right. It's one thing to do,

[00:21:56] re-shoot all those scenes differently but

[00:21:58] think about all the new design work

[00:22:02] that has to happen. You have to sort of

[00:22:04] change people's, you know, for so many

[00:22:07] people, you know, Sting looks a certain

[00:22:09] way and Minas Tirith looks a certain

[00:22:11] way because they've seen the films, you know,

[00:22:13] again and again so that people have this

[00:22:17] idea in their head of what everything

[00:22:19] is supposed to look like in that world

[00:22:21] and to have to get a crew on to redesign

[00:22:24] everything, that'd be a real tough one.

[00:22:27] That'd be like redesigning Star Wars I guess.

[00:22:33] Yeah, and you don't want to go down

[00:22:37] the Star Wars rabbit hole.

[00:22:39] Let's leave it at that. There's all that too.

[00:22:42] All together, I mean, go ahead.

[00:22:45] I was going to say, I haven't been paying

[00:22:49] that close attention but as far as I'm

[00:22:52] aware, I haven't seen any Rings of Power

[00:22:54] merchandise anywhere. Yeah, missed

[00:22:57] opportunity for sure. They've overspent

[00:23:00] so much on it and I think I can't see

[00:23:04] anyone really doing anything with that other

[00:23:06] than like maybe a new Monopoly set or

[00:23:09] trading card game. I don't know if they

[00:23:12] personally don't know what to do with the

[00:23:15] merchandise but another game would be

[00:23:18] wonderful. I mean, I would love to, I

[00:23:20] don't play games anymore but I would

[00:23:22] love to even see there be a Rings of Power

[00:23:24] game. Yeah, I just wonder what it would

[00:23:27] be about and what they would do.

[00:23:31] I've kind of blocked out most of the

[00:23:33] show, most of the stuff that I

[00:23:35] watched as the episodes were rolling out.

[00:23:38] It was all, it was quite exciting for the

[00:23:40] first two episodes but I couldn't tell you

[00:23:42] a single thing that happened later on.

[00:23:45] Basically, they're going down to a lot of

[00:23:48] the other inner cities that are vaguely

[00:23:50] mentioned as well as in between

[00:23:53] Isengard, actually yes,

[00:23:59] between Isengard and Rohan and basically

[00:24:03] just, I mean it helps that they have a

[00:24:09] lot of tips and tricks and there's

[00:24:11] different people who find other stuff

[00:24:13] kind of easy to predict. I kind of find

[00:24:16] it interesting how they are fleshing out

[00:24:19] again as Zildor and all these other

[00:24:22] guys who eventually become, you know,

[00:24:24] Sauron. You know, it's just like it

[00:24:27] reinforces to me how he is literally the

[00:24:29] Anakin Skywalker of his day and age

[00:24:31] where he is, you know, he's screwing it up

[00:24:35] for everybody. You would think he'd be a

[00:24:39] well-intended anti-hero and he's just

[00:24:41] becoming a tyrant.

[00:24:43] Yeah, I think we have to wait a whole

[00:24:47] year before we see how all that stuff

[00:24:49] pays off. I'm curious to see if they

[00:24:53] go the full five seasons. I think there

[00:24:55] was five seasons that were slated to

[00:24:58] make. It's going to be quite a while

[00:25:02] before you can collect a big

[00:25:05] Renzer Powell box set, I imagine.

[00:25:07] Oh, I imagine so.

[00:25:10] So you said you played the war in the north?

[00:25:15] I didn't but I saw it heavily promoted

[00:25:19] and I wanted to play it. Do you have

[00:25:22] an expert?

[00:25:24] Yeah, that one came out when I was

[00:25:27] in high school and that was one of the

[00:25:29] things that I did. I was like,

[00:25:32] gruesome. You know, you cut orcs' heads

[00:25:35] off and cut their arms off and what not.

[00:25:38] Again, it was just like another story

[00:25:41] was very light on story but the action

[00:25:45] was great. And it was kind of,

[00:25:49] yeah, the premise was just sort of based

[00:25:53] on, I forget what the line is but there's

[00:25:56] a lot of people who are in the north

[00:25:59] and I think he's talking to some of the

[00:26:02] Hobbits and he's just saying, you know,

[00:26:05] this whole war thing could have really

[00:26:07] gotten out of control if a handful of

[00:26:10] people in the north weren't keeping

[00:26:13] things together and protecting those

[00:26:16] borders while we were out here doing our

[00:26:20] thing in Gondor and Rohan. I mean a

[00:26:23] lot of people are in the north and

[00:26:25] there's a lot of people who are in the north

[00:26:28] and there's these three, you know, an

[00:26:31] Elf and Dwarf and a Ranger. And

[00:26:34] they're little adventures in the north

[00:26:37] stopping, you know, the little servants

[00:26:40] that Sauron has posted up around there.

[00:26:43] So it was pretty, you got to see some

[00:26:46] places that you've never been before,

[00:26:49] which was very cool. And it was done in

[00:26:52] the north and it was quite well done.

[00:26:56] But like I say, it was very action

[00:26:59] heavy. And that was sort of the

[00:27:02] prelude to

[00:27:07] a Shadow of Mordor

[00:27:10] in a way that was like the first

[00:27:13] of the gruesome Lord of the Rings

[00:27:16] titles. Yeah. Very gritty, very

[00:27:19] gritty, very gritty, very gritty

[00:27:22] Yeah. Very gritty. And I mean, to be fair,

[00:27:26] it was always blurring that line in between, you know,

[00:27:31] for kids versus for young adults, you know,

[00:27:34] you get bloody descriptions in the book, but

[00:27:37] the movies get a PG-13 because the blood is black

[00:27:40] and it's fantasy versus, you know,

[00:27:43] a realistic war movie.

[00:27:46] Yeah, this, when you look at the list of

[00:27:50] the games that have come out,

[00:27:53] Lord of the Rings, you know, that world is so

[00:27:56] dense and there's so many good chapters in

[00:27:59] the book, which is just characters hanging out

[00:28:01] or singing or doing whatever. But

[00:28:04] I think video games, if you look at the list

[00:28:08] of all the games that have come out, especially

[00:28:10] since the movies have been released, it's all

[00:28:12] just been hacking and slashing and jumping

[00:28:15] and emphasis on the

[00:28:19] battles and stuff. I think the only one that

[00:28:22] kind of has like a well-rounded depiction

[00:28:25] of, you know, that Tolkien's world is probably

[00:28:28] Lord of the Rings online.

[00:28:31] That's probably the most varied middle-earth

[00:28:34] experience you're probably going to get.

[00:28:37] And that's probably why it stuck around, you know,

[00:28:40] to this day.

[00:28:42] Yeah, sure.

[00:28:46] Any

[00:28:53] other game premises you'd like to see?

[00:28:56] Oh, man.

[00:28:59] I don't know.

[00:29:03] I'd just like to see more of, you know,

[00:29:09] I'm not too sure. That's a tough one. I'd like to see

[00:29:11] more,

[00:29:14] I'd like to see more, you know, movie tie-in

[00:29:17] games. I'd like to see more Peter Jacks and Lord of

[00:29:19] the Rings titles, but I wouldn't know what you

[00:29:21] would do.

[00:29:23] I'd like to see a Bill LaPony video game, I guess.

[00:29:26] Find out what he got up to.

[00:29:29] You could reformat. I mean, I can see them doing

[00:29:32] a more diverse kind of game where you actually

[00:29:35] go around crafting

[00:29:38] like your own soldier, your own army.

[00:29:41] Decide if you want to be a doodledane ranger

[00:29:44] or a guard,

[00:29:46] or a guard who is, you know,

[00:29:48] gone door guard

[00:29:51] or a guy

[00:29:53] guarding the shire for the hobbidge.

[00:29:55] If they were able to do

[00:29:58] like a mass effect style

[00:30:00] you know game where you have sort of

[00:30:03] conversation choices

[00:30:05] and your character

[00:30:08] changes depending on, you know,

[00:30:11] your actions have consequences, that sort of thing.

[00:30:14] But I don't know, yeah, I'm not too sure.

[00:30:19] I think we're about to see

[00:30:23] more video games come out

[00:30:25] with the, like you said, the animation,

[00:30:28] the writers of Rohan Animation

[00:30:31] that comes out next year.

[00:30:33] So maybe that'll kick things off again and we'll see a bit

[00:30:36] more

[00:30:38] Lord of the Rings goodness out there.

[00:30:40] I will say as, you know,

[00:30:43] even if some of the games are hit and miss

[00:30:46] they have probably

[00:30:50] they've been lucky with the amount of like

[00:30:56] big Hollywood actors that have lent their voices

[00:30:59] to the game counter

[00:31:01] and they're like, you know,

[00:31:03] they're like, you know,

[00:31:05] it's like, you know,

[00:31:06] there's a lot of stuff that's going on

[00:31:09] and it's like, you know,

[00:31:10] you have to do the game characters

[00:31:12] or doing the narration.

[00:31:14] Like you were talking about Conquest,

[00:31:16] I'm pretty sure Hugo Weaving

[00:31:19] does all the narration for that.

[00:31:21] And in those Battle For Middle Earth games

[00:31:24] from back in the day, that's Ian McCallan

[00:31:27] and I think Christopher Lee narrates the

[00:31:30] narrates the

[00:31:33] Yeah, I saw it advertised a lot. It was pretty well rated.

[00:31:39] Yeah. Yeah, they just, I don't know what contract those guys signed. You know, the actors back in

[00:31:48] the day, but they had Viggo Mortensen on Orlando Bloom and John Rhys Davies. They all appeared for

[00:31:55] you know, the two towers and then for the return of the King game, they had Elijah Wood and

[00:32:00] promoted on the DVD too. Yeah.

[00:32:05] Yeah, they got very coming soon and you can play, you know, back during the CD-ROM games and you can

[00:32:11] play preview if you want to put it in your Xbox. Yeah, I miss that kind of in

[00:32:19] movie kind of stuff. Now no one has the time and everything's digital, but you know,

[00:32:25] but that still can work in everyone's favor, you know, for Steam and what have you.

[00:32:31] Yeah, for sure. Okay, all right. Welcome, Kyler. Welcome, Kyler. Welcome, welcome, my dude.

[00:32:50] Hello, give me just a second.

[00:32:54] Kyler Thornton in the studio. Another Lord of the Rings superfan.

[00:32:59] Welcome. Speaking of Amazon, I think. Oh, I'm sorry. No, I'm good. No, you're right.

[00:33:13] Welcome. Can y'all hear me fine now? Yes, sir. Can you hear us? Yeah. Okay, awesome. Yeah, yeah,

[00:33:18] yeah, sorry about all that. That was, I should have zoom has the least install. No, it happens

[00:33:25] once in a while. But welcome to the show. And so, Kyler, how long have you been into the Lord of

[00:33:41] the Rings Tolkien fandom? I've been in it for quite some time. So I'm 23. I want to say

[00:33:56] probably since I was eight-ish, I've always had like a knack for medieval things, but Lord of

[00:34:05] the Rings really, really kind of took the trophy on that and kind of pulled me a lot more into it.

[00:34:15] Very nice. What part of the world are you in at the moment, Kyler?

[00:34:24] What part of the world, sorry? Yeah, he's based in Sydney.

[00:34:32] Okay, the real dude, I thought you were talking about in like in the Tolkien universe.

[00:34:38] I was like, ah, man, I don't know. That's a great question. You can tell me that as well if you fancy.

[00:34:48] I mean, I live in Texas. I think me and... So am I. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, yeah, we're

[00:34:56] in Austin area. Dallas? Yep. Okay, I had it twisted. I'm about three hours south of there

[00:35:06] in College Station, Texas. Fantastic. Very nice. Yeah, we were talking earlier how it's

[00:35:17] interesting with these Lord of the Rings games, how depending on their license depends on

[00:35:23] you know what it's adapting. Is it their own take on the books? Is it adapting a cartoon? Is it

[00:35:29] adapting the movies? Yeah, or like the new show. Right. We were surprised by that,

[00:35:39] how there hasn't been a game based on the show yet, but I don't know if it's just that Amazon

[00:35:44] spends so much on it, some production hell or what, but... I bet it'll come soon. I mean,

[00:35:52] there's plenty to do with it, whether that's good or bad, but there's definitely plenty to do with it.

[00:36:01] And I don't know if y'all know, did Amazon just buy rights for the show? Or did they kind of buy

[00:36:07] rights for... I think it was just for the show because like they, I did talk to some other

[00:36:13] Tolkien heads like Lord of the Rings and they noted how

[00:36:17] they could only adapt it to a certain point. They were not, even though they

[00:36:21] referenced the score from the movie, they couldn't... and they're trying to make it canon with that,

[00:36:26] they couldn't actually show scenes or reference certain elements from certain books or parts of

[00:36:32] the movie. So it's definitely in a gray area, you know? It's like how... but I accrued as to

[00:36:38] anyone who can pull off anything and just make it consistent for the most part.

[00:36:48] Yeah, I'm with you there. I mean, I know a lot of people are up and down about it,

[00:36:53] but personally, I mean, as much of a fan as the original stuff I am, I'm just...

[00:37:00] I like that they're kind of doing some more with it, even if it's not necessarily the best

[00:37:07] route, it's just more kind of eye candy for me. And if it gets people to read the books again,

[00:37:15] I mean that's good too. I'm sure that's happened as a result of the TV show and the sort of...

[00:37:26] the different takes they're having on the iconic characters is probably getting people to go back

[00:37:31] to the books and have a bit of a... having a look and see if it lines up. But who knows?

[00:37:45] I think it'll be interesting to see what the second season of Rings of Power looks like now

[00:37:52] that they've moved from New Zealand to Europe with a new crew and all that.

[00:38:01] Did they do that? Yeah, they did. Interesting. Yeah, it was...

[00:38:13] I think partly a result of the super strict lockdown laws that New Zealand had at the time

[00:38:23] because obviously all the Amazon executives were in the States and they couldn't fly in and out

[00:38:28] of New Zealand. I wouldn't want to. I'd be like, dude, I got to go on 50 other press junkets.

[00:38:37] Yeah. We were talking about how they had a Hobbit game by Sierra as well as a fellowship game,

[00:38:45] but it looked like the movie, but it wasn't like the movie. And then EA, Electronic Arts got

[00:38:52] involved. What was your intro to playing the LOTR games? For me, I'm trying to think. So

[00:39:04] I remember back in the day, I don't know when it came out. This is just a brief memory. The Lord

[00:39:11] of the Rings online. Sweet. I played that not long. I played a lot of World of Warcraft, so that

[00:39:20] as much as I like Lord of the Rings, that was kind of my MMO RPG of choice. You exist in this world.

[00:39:31] But I played that for a little while, not much. However, I did play Lord of the Rings Conquest.

[00:39:43] I'm not sure if you are familiar with that. Last one I played too. And why do you think it

[00:39:48] got such mediocre reviews when it was, again, like the Battlefront, it was giving the player kind of

[00:39:54] the basics. The nuts and bolts is like you can play as your own villains and you capture this flag

[00:39:59] and you can conquer Middle Earth or fight for it. I'm with you there. If they did some sort of

[00:40:08] remaster or something like that, I would go absolutely crazy on that. I'd play it non-stop.

[00:40:14] I feel like the only, go ahead. It must have been just some corporate media thing. I get that EA is

[00:40:20] like Activision where they have off-color remarks, but I don't see what it failed to deliver on in

[00:40:27] terms of the premise. Yeah, I don't get it either. I mean you get to play as just about

[00:40:35] anything in the universe almost. Or you're a guy. Yeah.

[00:40:47] You could ride a warg in that game. That was pretty cool. Even an eagle-like thing you could play as.

[00:40:55] Yeah. And they had basically any location, any map you could think of to play in.

[00:41:05] Really? Pretty much. I'm not sure where the player, I don't know how many people you could get onto one

[00:41:12] game. I'm not too sure, but memory is pretty big. I think it was up to four. Yeah. But

[00:41:19] plus online, almost all those games had an online component, I think. So it was like, yeah.

[00:41:26] It's giving you what you want. I don't know what is a missed opportunity here.

[00:41:33] Yeah, I don't understand. They should have another stab at a conquest-like game

[00:41:44] now that they have all the, obviously the Hobbit movies have come out since then.

[00:41:50] So I wonder if that would be a go. I'd be done. I'd be all for it. I'd play it every day.

[00:41:58] I'd get back into gaming.

[00:42:04] Oh, it's an expensive old hobby these days. Right?

[00:42:11] I made the mistake of purchasing, oh, I pre-ordered the Gollum game, the

[00:42:20] notorious Gollum game from earlier this year. I think that's a good segue. So I haven't played

[00:42:24] it. I know a lot of people were complaining about everything from the gameplay to the animation, to

[00:42:30] the premise. And it doesn't have anything to do with the movies or books, I guess.

[00:42:42] Yeah. I mean, I had to stop maybe three hours in because I just sort of threw my hands up and

[00:42:52] I can't, the way it plays isn't very, it's not very accessible, I would say. It's a bit of a tough one.

[00:43:03] A half-assed game, gotcha. Yeah, but the design, I was drawn to it just because it looked different

[00:43:11] to anything we'd seen before. Design-wise everything looked pretty, they had fresh takes on the

[00:43:20] mouth of Sauron and Merckwood and the Gandalf look different, and they obviously had a completely new

[00:43:30] voice cast for everyone. So I was drawn to that side of it just to see a fresh take on all that

[00:43:37] sort of stuff, but it just played very, very badly. But it is $9. I think today, I think on Amazon

[00:43:46] it lost that much money. No one wants to buy it except for the morbidly curious.

[00:43:54] How much was it originally? I got it for like $100 Australian, which is probably like $50

[00:44:04] where you guys are from. Had I waited, yeah, I feel like a bit of a goose, but

[00:44:11] you live in line. We get goose all the time. Wow, so I don't think usually when I see a game based

[00:44:23] on a popular property, it's tough to tell what's legit versus what's just people being kind of toxic

[00:44:30] online and so this is interesting to me because it's kind of like one of those aliens games,

[00:44:36] I think it was Colonial Marines which a lot of people come same kind of deal, people were

[00:44:40] complaining about the gameplay, voice acting and other glitches and it's like well so but

[00:44:49] it's so hard to kind of get to the nuts and bolts because you got to go through just

[00:44:54] the unimaginative reviews before you get to the people who can make an engaging review and tell

[00:45:00] you the pros and cons. Yeah, yeah, it was for me it was one of those yeah because I'd seen

[00:45:07] what people had said about it, about that title sort of like a month before it was released and I

[00:45:15] said no we'll see how it goes. Like this is it's obviously very hard if you're having to reimagine

[00:45:22] all these things and adapt, golem, you know take the character from the book and into the video

[00:45:32] game format like it's a very strange character to want to base a video game around in the first place

[00:45:38] like he's a pretty pitiable murderer sort of, it was just a very strange direction but it only

[00:45:49] took me a couple of hours to realize that everything that I've read online about it is

[00:45:55] um uh yeah founded apropos.

[00:46:03] Yeah, I would have preferred more of a game on say Aragorn something like that maybe not golem.

[00:46:15] Yeah we were talking earlier there could it be fun if you can't if they tried what they

[00:46:21] kind of did halfway with the third age but maybe just have people fight all the other battles that

[00:46:27] are often mentioned during the second and the third age but you don't really see enough of.

[00:46:34] I'd like to do one with the omer or some of the other uh maybe eowens tribe just kind of

[00:46:40] just go around and just do a lot of side quests while on their way to gondor.

[00:46:46] Yeah that would be that would be pretty interesting.

[00:46:52] Yeah there's so much there's so much they could do there's so many different factions that would

[00:46:57] be interesting to follow um and now you know these days there's so many different types of

[00:47:04] games you can you can um you can attempt. Yeah speaking of that have y'all um y'all ever played

[00:47:16] the that bone game that recently came out it's um Lord of the Rings Heroes of Middle Earth?

[00:47:24] I I think I saw a brief promo for it did you get a chance I

[00:47:29] I did I mean I was I was playing in an hour ago I play it I play it every single day um it's it's

[00:47:39] pretty neat it's it really delves you into kind of all the different types of like types of characters

[00:47:54] like different clans things like that like you've got your your Rohan Dundane um sorry I'm trying to think

[00:48:06] I should know this so it was playing it 20 minutes ago at least.

[00:48:11] But basically it's just got a whole bunch of characters in it um you collect um you gear

[00:48:17] them up level them up um right now they have a mind's of Moria raid which is pretty interesting

[00:48:24] sweet you get to as a during Gimli's like uh I forget the name of his father I think was

[00:48:31] Balin or I think or is it later on? Gloin. Gloin is the father. Gloin okay my god yeah

[00:48:40] Balin was in the the minds of Moria when it when it fell at least I think I don't want to sound

[00:48:48] stupid here but uh he was in uh he was in like an expedition that uh that's what it was yes yeah and

[00:48:58] he was killed um and the fellowship in the in the you know in the books and in the movies they

[00:49:08] they visit his tomb and have a big fight with the cave troll.

[00:49:12] Yeah so in this game which is pretty interesting because they're starting it's a relatively new game

[00:49:18] so they're coming out with more and more content more and more characters but they make games similar

[00:49:24] to this um they have a Star Wars version um that I've touched on a little bit but what they do is um

[00:49:33] they start to delve into like shattered timelines so say Balin took over the like was able to reclaim

[00:49:42] the minds of Moria recently they just released like a Balin like a king version of it of him

[00:49:52] along with um some companions of his that I guess they created or something but it's pretty

[00:49:59] interesting yeah so you can kind of and they have little stories on it I mean the story's not

[00:50:05] very great but it's it's an interesting take on it. All right. I think it's just trying. I think

[00:50:15] people just people just like hanging out with those characters even if the game sucks it's cool

[00:50:23] you know the characters are very cool and very compelling and I think you could you could make

[00:50:28] sort of anything I mean they still they make like Slut Machine like what are the rings Slut Machine

[00:50:33] games I think people just like to see the the characters and the environments it's a very

[00:50:41] sort of attractive uh I don't know iconography all of that stuff. Yeah essentially yeah I definitely

[00:50:51] recommend it if you if you like that kind of stuff it's like character collection um

[00:50:57] like they're gonna they currently have Strider right now but I assume eventually they'll have

[00:51:05] different versions of him and his different like throughout his life because they've done that

[00:51:13] in their like Star Wars game. All righty. But another thing I like about it is I'm a I'm a big phone

[00:51:22] game or a mobile game player however a lot of the time they take up a lot of time this one I can

[00:51:29] get on for just a few minutes at a time get my things done that I want to get done it's a

[00:51:35] pretty slow paced game but because it's character collection I don't really mind it being slow

[00:51:42] paced and also I'm working all the time so it's it's a it's nice when I'm just like taking a quick

[00:51:48] break from work I can hop on there for 10 minutes or so and get my stuff done for the next few hours

[00:51:55] on the game. It's no different than venting at this point yeah yeah just have fun 20 minutes. Yeah

[00:52:05] exactly yeah that was the that was a the nice quality of the the early 2000s games it was just

[00:52:14] you know the levels were nice and short it was just jump in have a bit of fun and then jump out

[00:52:20] yeah nowadays now with Star Wars I played I want to say back in 2016 2017 ish

[00:52:29] and it was one of those where you select your characters and have them it didn't matter what side

[00:52:35] they're technically on you just have them kind of just just like a chess game just have them

[00:52:40] go on whichever side of the board you want and just kick each other's ass but

[00:52:45] the game crashed so much on my phone I think my phone was just very bad that I just after

[00:52:50] a while just had to call it quits but great premise

[00:52:56] absolutely but definitely better than the new battlefronts where you're literally just

[00:53:02] spending thousands just to unlock certain characters and kick the other team's ass it's

[00:53:07] not realistic yeah I will say this this lord of the rings here is a middle earth definitely

[00:53:17] it's got its it's EA I'm pretty sure so it's got its money grab in there don't get me wrong but

[00:53:25] just the collection aspect of it is pretty fun to me yeah I mean you want you want this to be fun

[00:53:34] too yeah and like usually the the big spenders that's just so you can max out your gear earlier

[00:53:43] than other people and all this and all that but the game really is I'd say 95% totally free to play

[00:53:55] um so you can collect all the characters it might just take a little bit longer if you are free to

[00:54:02] play later than never exactly but they come out with characters every usually about

[00:54:13] two to three a month so I mean you you're never really running out or running out of things to

[00:54:21] collect and stuff to do so if if something comes out you can't get it right then you got other

[00:54:28] stuff to take care of anyway cool I'll check those out not sure when I'll get the time but

[00:54:38] I'll make some time if you guys like um if you enjoyed Lord of the Rings Conquest

[00:54:47] from back in the day there's a there's something called Conquest Reimagined I don't know if it's

[00:54:54] they're still working on it but it's it's uh basically a remaster of that title with new

[00:55:01] um you know new and like new factions you can play as

[00:55:07] perhaps they're going to cease and desist but maybe they're still going because they're

[00:55:13] their Instagram is as you know lots of like redesigned Uruk-Ai armor like new orc designs

[00:55:20] it's all pretty impressive so maybe that have a look into that if you what was it called again

[00:55:27] it's called uh it's called Conquest Reimagined okay is it on PC or

[00:55:37] oh I couldn't tell you I mean it's probably on PC I would say that's okay that is a pretty good guess

[00:55:45] but it's um I mean because that's what I was saying if they come out with something I'm playing

[00:55:51] I don't care what it is yeah and there's also if you fancy the Battle for Middle Earth

[00:56:00] titles like the sort of Age of Empires style games there's a there's a mod for that called Age of the Ring

[00:56:09] and that is um I think they've gone about um and they've designed you know all of the hobbit

[00:56:19] armies you know the dwarves the you know the Merckwood elves they've they've added all of that sort

[00:56:25] of stuff to the game um and a bunch of characters that appear in the in the books but weren't in

[00:56:31] the movies they've sort of um they've designed them with the sort of Weta Workshop Peter Jackson

[00:56:38] Aesthetic in mind and that's something you can play if you know anything about modding

[00:56:42] which which I have no clue but it's out there I didn't know they had an Age of the Ring game

[00:56:53] it's a it's a it's a mod for the Battle for Middle Earth 2 game oh okay I see I'm looking at it now

[00:57:05] um is that Battle for Middle Earth 2 is that like Age of the Empires is that what you said yeah

[00:57:12] that's the one when did that come out

[00:57:17] ah I want to say like 2005 or something like that I could be right because I I

[00:57:24] I I pretty regularly play Age of the Empire there I go on little sprees every couple months so

[00:57:32] if I I don't know how I didn't know there was a Lord of the Rings version of it that's pretty

[00:57:37] upset some stuff isn't as promoted yeah well I know what I'm doing when I get home

[00:57:47] there we go the spirit um do you think these games appeal because they're also just

[00:57:56] aside from just the obvious epicness you think they're just very easy to get into even if

[00:58:01] you're just haven't even seen the movies or read the books um I feel like if you're into

[00:58:14] medieval-esque sort of things yeah I would say they'd be pretty easy to get into

[00:58:22] I think a lot of it for me is probably nostalgia like every time a new one comes out I'm kind of

[00:58:27] hoping that it's going to be like the ones that I played when I was a kid but I don't

[00:58:32] think that I don't think you'll ever get that back I don't I don't think it'll ever live up to

[00:58:38] you know the experience you had when you were young and playing those things for the first time

[00:58:43] so I think it's a bit of like nostalgia and a bit of like it's they're pretty straightforward

[00:58:51] you know good versus evil stories that is sort of anyone can get behind

[00:58:55] um and like I said before the characters are just so cool

[00:59:04] and then there's something there's something for everyone there's you know elves dwarves

[00:59:09] you know wizards and and within that you know have all these different you have kings you have

[00:59:16] basically orphans you have uh I don't know I'm just trying to break down the

[00:59:23] break down the fellowship and the fellowship what have you got I would have loved a game where

[00:59:28] you get to play as various wizards yeah well there was one if they had other ones there's brown

[00:59:38] and all that and I just always wish that could be tapped into a little more in Middle Earth

[00:59:44] there was supposed to be EA Redwood back in the day was working on a game called the

[00:59:51] White Council which was about that sounds amazing yeah so I would have been about

[00:59:58] you know Gandalf and Saruman and and the White Council and what they got up to I don't know why

[01:00:05] they stopped working on that but I think at the time they were working on that the films

[01:00:11] that already been out for a couple of years so maybe maybe the interest was kind of dying down but

[01:00:17] I'll have to look into that but that was I think that was something that people were

[01:00:24] definitely looking into but there's plenty of wizarding stuff in Lord of the Rings online if

[01:00:34] you're that way in kind I'll see you might have to try that. I would hop into Lord of the Rings

[01:00:42] online a little more actually this earlier this year I looked into it again from back in my childhood

[01:00:51] but I don't know if they if they updated the graphics in that game I'd probably play it

[01:00:58] sweet but it's pretty it's pretty outdated for my liking.

[01:01:04] Yeah all good I don't envy the the writers of that game whoever has to come up with all of the

[01:01:17] you know all the quests and all the poems and riddles and stuff that sort of

[01:01:22] conveyed that game it's just it's a mountain of work and yeah yeah you could get lost in there for

[01:01:31] I'm sure years at this point because there's so much so much content added to it for sure

[01:01:43] well I learned that I think you guys have summed up a lot of the ones that are just very heavily

[01:01:48] recommended but do you guys care to promote anything you guys are doing in any way

[01:01:53] you should or yeah we like to help out the little guys.

[01:01:57] Hmm I've got nothing I'm off social media and all that sort of stuff so

[01:02:07] I suppose just support the your local film industry I guess that's

[01:02:15] what I would say.

[01:02:18] Kyler if you got any business or anything else?

[01:02:22] Um well this isn't anything related to Lord of the Rings at all but I am a health insurance

[01:02:30] agent in the United States. I know that's pretty some people don't like health insurance

[01:02:37] understandably but I am a health insurance agent in the United States. I can cover people nationwide

[01:02:45] so if you need some health insurance it's on the private market um exempt from ACA in Obamacare

[01:02:55] give me a shout at kylercareinsuranceatgmail.com okay very nice and oh I'm sorry that's

[01:03:06] spelt weird so it's k-y-l-a-r-k-a-r-e insurance at gmail.com very cool all righty I would

[01:03:17] say this too if you're like Lord of the Rings stuff you should give the one ring dot net a

[01:03:25] look in because they love that site they've been the sort of premier Lord of the Rings folks for

[01:03:32] forever and they're good guys in fact I was I was messaging Cliff who's one of the

[01:03:40] the hosts of the podcast this morning and he funnily enough he was the voice of Samwise

[01:03:47] in the Fellowship of the Ring game that the Vivendi game so if you got the game on Xbox you

[01:03:52] could hear Cliff do his best Samwise Gamgee all right give those dudes a look I will we'll do it

[01:05:06] got another lovely guest we've been meaning to meet up for a while

[01:05:11] who other than Josh Scar from the Talking Smack podcast hey thanks for having me

[01:05:18] anytime all your superhero needs he's got you covered

[01:05:22] and we try we do our best for me it's mostly Captain America and like the Marvel stuff but I

[01:05:27] love Nightwing Superman Batman yeah we try to cover everything as of recording we just released our

[01:05:34] review of the 2019 Power Rangers Ninja Turtles comic crossover which was really good so

[01:05:40] I was wild you like superhero stuff if you like going into comics movies tv that's us we do it all

[01:05:46] you've done some other ones as well and we'd love to have you on for some of the other fun

[01:05:52] comics and crossovers and everything but oh yeah in the meantime I mean this is just kind of cool

[01:05:58] just seeing how for such an epic franchise that's you know dominated the the book verse

[01:06:07] and the big screen movies and now has a show that divisive as it is you know still

[01:06:15] cut the mustard in terms of ratings so I mean what do you think it is about a Lord of the Rings

[01:06:20] video game in general that twists it around and makes it its own cup of tea it's it's obviously

[01:06:26] the world um Tolkien did such a great job of world building in his books like you could argue

[01:06:32] a third if not half of those books are all based uh are dedicated to world building

[01:06:37] so you have this really fleshed out world that he has described to the viewer and it like it's

[01:06:44] very easily translatable like um oh I'm trying to remember the guy's name who did the the animated

[01:06:50] Lord of the Rings um odd scheme yeah yeah um and like the the translation he had is

[01:06:58] I mean it's it's animated but it's almost identical as far as like the aesthetic of everything

[01:07:03] into the live action stuff we've gotten and I mean it's so influential to everything like the

[01:07:10] the way he describes the dwarf caverns is stuff you'll see in uh dnd it's stuff you'll see in uh

[01:07:17] dragon age origins or the dragon age games like it just transcends everything because of how

[01:07:23] influential it was at the time and how well he just built that world I have not heard in forever

[01:07:29] oh dragon age origins is one of my all-time favorite games I've been meaning to go back

[01:07:33] and play it but I don't know that I have 60 hours to dedicate to one thing anymore

[01:07:37] you know what let's do a special in that in the future uh but yeah I mean uh that and dynasty

[01:07:45] warriors dragon guard it seems like so many games just kind of they find their own formatting

[01:07:55] and it's just out of this world um but what do you make overall of just

[01:08:05] why it's just so epic to play as these various characters and do other stuff that's not in

[01:08:11] either version of the movie or book but still intense and engaging yeah uh I mean what what

[01:08:18] makes it special to play uh you know um at the auditorium from assassin's creed it's it's the

[01:08:24] escapism it's the the wish fulfillment to be able to be this character that lives in this world that

[01:08:30] you can't be in physically but you know emotionally mentally you can correspond with them and uh just

[01:08:37] being like who doesn't love medieval times and this one has magic and elves and dwarves and

[01:08:44] orcs that you can just lop their heads off like it's a great world to just turn your

[01:08:50] turn your moral compass off essentially because more often than not the person who looks evil is

[01:08:55] probably going to be evil and you can make a good moral decision there are definitely no shortage

[01:09:01] of decisions when we brought up this topic I have the I saved the wikipedia page I didn't

[01:09:08] realize there have been so many games made for lord of the rings uh like the gaming stuff goes all

[01:09:14] the way back to 1982 and it I mean it's what we've been talking about where it's just such a rife

[01:09:22] era in a world that you can do what you really want to and it's open to interpretations

[01:09:28] people different people can decide what's important what's not important like we have with peter

[01:09:32] jackson where tom bombadil is not important to this story he really isn't but there are there are

[01:09:38] thousands of people who were upset that tom bombadil was not in those movies oh dear we kill time

[01:09:46] so like it's it's really just interesting to see where people decide to go with this because like

[01:09:52] if you want to get into the I mean I'll say it with air quotes the hobbit movies which that

[01:09:59] in my opinion really should have been just two movies but they fluffed it out because money

[01:10:07] with with that did you do you really need the guy that can turn into a bear which I'm forgetting

[01:10:12] his name be your um yeah it would be great to play in a game but yeah yeah oh yeah without all that

[01:10:19] emphasis and they spend so much time on just kind of the action for stuff that when you read

[01:10:26] the book I mean I can understand no emitting stuff because it's excessive or just not theatrical

[01:10:31] but there's a lot of stuff in there where I'm like it's killing a lot of development time

[01:10:36] I'm really not connected to anyone the actors are making them charming but I'm not sure they

[01:10:40] read that way on as they do on under the script or in the book but yeah Bjorn comes out of nowhere

[01:10:47] and I'm like so you got rid of tom bombadil but we're keeping this guy that's essentially kind

[01:10:54] of a same uh he should be ending the movie yeah yeah like I mean he shows up in the third movie

[01:11:01] which you know a little bit of payoff but is it really that important and when the title battle

[01:11:07] is like less like 10 minutes on screen and then it goes back to a personal sword fight I'm like

[01:11:14] okay so but they needed him for the lego game that I think that's that was the most important

[01:11:20] thing that works which I forgot they did a lego lord of the rings I'm gonna have to go back and find

[01:11:29] those I saw uh the I played the indiana jones one those were fun but I played the indiana

[01:11:38] jones of the star wars and most of the dc and let marvel ones um but the lord of the rings one

[01:11:44] I I remember I played the demo and that was when they started using sound clips from the movies

[01:11:52] instead of it just being like this yeah excuse me instead of it being this little cute pantsam I'm

[01:11:57] thing and that's where that's where the lego games kind of started losing me is when they started

[01:12:01] doing the voice acting and just copy and pasting voice matching and before I ruined everything yeah

[01:12:10] I think the lord of the rings games was the first one that actually did that and that just kind of

[01:12:15] killed the the allure of the lego games for me because it was all about like how they interpreted

[01:12:23] what the lego pieces were doing because it was kind of like a kid playing with the lego bits and

[01:12:27] now it's just like oh now the kids just setting up the pieces and putting them up against the

[01:12:32] screen so that the characters have voices yeah I mean I felt that way with some of those lego

[01:12:40] animated movies too where I'm like okay it's fine I think I think the lego movie is really good until

[01:12:47] you get to the twist which we're off on top yeah I know I met some of the made for tv movies

[01:12:54] that oh yeah like the ninja goes and all that stuff barely barely what I could even call a movie

[01:13:00] mm-hmm more like yeah that's I mean like a lesser gi joe kind of thing where it's meant to

[01:13:06] so enjoy just gonna say it's this it's the 80s tv show model or animated series model where it's

[01:13:12] just a really long commercial to sell the kids oh what can we do moisten dicing

[01:13:20] mixing guys the space follows the series space follows the video game the toilet paper the flame

[01:13:28] thrower the flame thrower I mean uh so we were looking at some other stuff were surprised never

[01:13:36] really happened um and we were told there's a strider video game in the works um yeah what aspect of

[01:13:44] lotr fandom do you think would actually bring not only just fans a lot of joy as a playable

[01:13:51] field but also do a lot for the gaming industry uh I Lord of the Rings is such a niche thing it really

[01:13:58] depends on what kind of genre they want to put it in like if it's going to follow the

[01:14:02] assassin's creed formula then I think it's gonna it's going to appeal to that base plus whoever

[01:14:08] wants to play a Lord of the Rings game because I mean they they've covered

[01:14:12] so many different aspects of gaming they've had RTS's which uh Sierra made an RTS game back in the

[01:14:20] early 2000s which I didn't know yeah I'm gonna have to find that one we were mixed on the Hobbit one

[01:14:25] but apparently the scholarship one was wild because you know it came out to capitalize on on the

[01:14:31] fact that there was a movie and yet didn't have anything to do with the movie it was just like

[01:14:35] book yeah uh yeah I saw my high school girlfriend dating myself my host high school girlfriend was

[01:14:43] playing that game and I was just flabbergasted at how bad it looked and I didn't even realize

[01:14:48] it was a Sierra game um but like I do kind of want to go back and play it just to see

[01:14:54] how it actually lines up with the book more of a curiosity now yeah it's basically um

[01:15:02] it's basically a Tomb Raider but said with you as Bilbo instead of Laura Croft yeah and I think

[01:15:08] slightly better graphics funny how it works man funny yeah but yeah um the the other Sierra game

[01:15:17] the the RTS was um War of the Ring which um it was a non-canon it was based off of the appendices

[01:15:26] where Tolkien had kind of laid out aspects okay yeah it laid out aspects of unimportant battles

[01:15:36] I think according to the Wikipedia there are two battles that are actually like important one of

[01:15:43] them is um where are you I lost it um sorry where's the plot here I was reading the plot

[01:15:55] oh the battle of Pellanor Fields and um the the defense of Oskilya those two are like

[01:16:02] important battles that actually are referenced and are fairly well detailed in the appendices

[01:16:07] everything else is just kind of like there was this battle and there's this battle it's

[01:16:10] so it kind of feels unimportant other than just like the novelty of again playing in in the

[01:16:15] world of Middle Earth my my main experience with The Lord of the Rings as a game series came

[01:16:21] with the the movie tie-ins published by EA Games the two towers and The Return of the King

[01:16:28] and I just remember the two towers game was just so cool like for the time the graphics looked great

[01:16:34] like as a kid playing this thing and like it was some of the best graphics I had ever seen

[01:16:39] the character models looked great they had a tie-in with the DVD or like hey put this in your

[01:16:44] Xbox you can play a sample yeah yeah I remember that and uh yeah just it looked so good and you

[01:16:51] played through in the two towers you actually played through um like some of the more action

[01:16:56] pack sequences from fellowship and then you also played like the battle of Pellanor's Deep was

[01:17:02] so much fun um I think that did kind of worry yeah I think that did kind of hurt my my

[01:17:09] feelings on Return of the King because they basically just remade that level except

[01:17:13] instead of playing between Gimli, Aragorn and Legolas you just played as Gandalf the White

[01:17:22] I was spoiled because I did ROTK first and then went back to two towers yeah and I remember

[01:17:28] two towers should have been I would have liked it to have been multiplayer kind of like Return of the King

[01:17:35] mm-hmm but if yeah I remember uh I got out of school one day and uh my friends and I we

[01:17:42] booked it to our local rental place and we picked up Return of the King like it was the last PS2 copy

[01:17:49] they had and we just burned through that game in an afternoon after school um but it was it was a lot

[01:17:55] of fun and I remember the uh the escape from the the army of the dead level that that one we got

[01:18:02] really frustrated on because you had it was one of those like you're running towards the camera so

[01:18:07] you don't know when the turns are coming or what obstacles are gonna get in your way

[01:18:10] and it's just like like I understand we need to see that this stuff is falling at us a little

[01:18:14] clunky but we need to see the obstacles too otherwise we're not getting out of here

[01:18:20] a little help here uh did you ever bother with the third age

[01:18:28] I didn't um was that another uh no that was a it's a final fantasy tactics kind of like right

[01:18:35] mm-hmm kind of it basically you're playing levels of the movies with characters created specifically

[01:18:42] for the game oh that's right they weren't a if I remember helping Eragorn fend off you're a guy

[01:18:50] you're helping yeah and I'll defeat the ball rock and you're like yeah this doesn't happen at the

[01:18:55] same time but okay you're like the little kid in the hamburger helper and I helped

[01:19:00] yeah and then this happened and then this happened yeah if I remember they weren't allowed to actually

[01:19:09] recreate anything from the books because it was a movie license game there was supposed to be

[01:19:15] something else and then that got scrapped and they just made a carbon copy of like

[01:19:19] final fantasy tactics or 10 or something and uh they just made it a Lord of the Rings game

[01:19:26] very confusing that is for sure the publishing process um but if we can if we can go back to

[01:19:36] the two towers real sure yeah the two towers and the return of the king um I think those kind of get

[01:19:42] lost in terms of we don't see them very much anymore but uh video game adaptations of movies

[01:19:48] I mean you've got people that think look fondly back on like golden eye and spider man two

[01:19:52] the original spider man two from 2004 not game was just like it was more than just

[01:19:58] trying to make the cell it was also a companion piece exactly mobilization yeah and I think the

[01:20:05] the two towers and return of the king both like should be in that best adaptation or video game

[01:20:11] adaptation uh category like I just feel like they get lost because the movies are just so epic

[01:20:17] who cares that they made video games off of them yeah everyone plays the games

[01:20:23] yeah but it's it's just they're so good I from what I remember like I'm basing this all purely

[01:20:30] off nostalgia at this point but I remember having so much fun with those and like

[01:20:34] even though they were only like six eight hour games six to eight hour games um

[01:20:38] I remember buying them and keeping them for a long time and this is the era of trade-ins

[01:20:44] and like game stops giving it back yeah until I got rid of my xbox and my ps2 like I played those a lot

[01:20:53] damn weren't holding back no I had fun with it like this this was my introduction to the lord

[01:21:01] of the rings like these are the things that got me into the books so um yeah they have a special

[01:21:07] place in my my nostalgia heart wait um did you ever play ergo one's quest um just looking at

[01:21:15] this one I never did but I think it was just the cover was to just stand off and I was like see

[01:21:20] they're trying to cash in but for younger I was that was that in the we era yep and I felt like

[01:21:27] it was just it's something that they downgraded for the we and it just does not look great and

[01:21:33] like that they need to do some different with that cover if they really wanted to sell that to

[01:21:36] people you would have thought how about war in the north was that another one was that one

[01:21:45] you tried it came out of you I had that point I had given it up but I was finding this interesting how

[01:21:53] those again they were doing their own thing but if you weren't keeping up with it you know then

[01:21:58] you were lost but I applaud them for just trying to have someone for like the emirated crowd kind of

[01:22:05] mm-hmm yeah they're they're rather the point where they're just trying they had the IP so

[01:22:09] they're just trying to throw something against the wall and see what stuck

[01:22:12] but yeah I don't remember yeah I don't remember that one ever really being highly regarded or a whole

[01:22:21] lot of hype towards it even being a Lord of the Rings game though the one that I do really remember

[01:22:26] being a Lord of the Ring a lot of hype for it for being a Lord of the Rings game is Shadow of

[01:22:32] Mordor and that's mostly because of the Nemesis system which I'm are you familiar with that

[01:22:37] integration tell me more so the Nemesis system there are it's a the game is a pretty standard like

[01:22:46] Witcher kind of style game if I remember it's a fairly open world but it's like segmented into

[01:22:52] different sandboxes so like you have one region that is open then another region that's open

[01:22:57] sort of like Assassin's Creed okay but one of the things that they created specifically for

[01:23:05] this game is something called the Nemesis system which is in a sense of like you're fighting in a big

[01:23:14] battle and you just you lose track of your health or you run out of potions or whatever it is that

[01:23:19] heals you and you die in battle the AI in the game is smart enough to recognize the orc or

[01:23:26] whatever enemy that killed you gave you that death blow and your character basically just goes

[01:23:32] off screen gets healed and then when you come back those that character that killed you and like

[01:23:37] the people around him will remember that he fell to you yeah and so like he'll he'll rise up through

[01:23:44] the ranks and he'll be a high right yeah exactly and it's it's just really I want to know more

[01:23:52] about this system and I every time I think about like I need to look into that and then just

[01:23:56] other more important things come into my brain but it's such a cool concept that just like

[01:24:04] a normal NPC character can just like stab you and be the one that gives you a game over screen

[01:24:11] you have to reload it and pick up at an infirmary or something yeah it's kind of loose loose

[01:24:17] the game is smart enough to be like this guy gets a promotion because he killed the main

[01:24:21] character of the game and so he's now he's a sergeant or lieutenant or a chief whatever it may be

[01:24:28] fifth re hill so you get this and like the again the game and the AI recognizes that so

[01:24:36] like certain orcs that were at that battle will have like battle scars and they'll taunt you

[01:24:41] they'll be like oh yeah this is the guy that rocky killed wow it's lots to take in

[01:24:47] and then with a shadow of war they actually modified it even more that like NPCs will react

[01:24:58] to things so like your your reputation can actually be affected as well so if you get killed by like

[01:25:05] a lowly orc instead of an uruk that orcs gonna rise up through the ranks and then citizens from

[01:25:11] like the area that you're in they're gonna be like oh this is the guy that really sucks

[01:25:15] and they'll talk bad about you or they'll like remember decisions that you made so it's

[01:25:20] it's similar to what they promised in mass effect where like your decisions have repercussions

[01:25:27] but really the game kind of continues on throughout until you get to certain moments in the story

[01:25:32] we're like oh a character dies or someone won't join your party this happens yeah it basically just

[01:25:39] alters story moments where in this case it actually alters like the ambience of the world around

[01:25:44] you and i think that's so cool and i really want to know more about how they can like expand it i'm

[01:25:50] sure they have like a copyright on it which is why we don't see it in more games but i want to see it

[01:25:55] in more games let's hope i remember when shadow of mortar was being pushed out they were talking

[01:26:03] about it because i think it came out around the same time it's like arkham asylum or arkham city

[01:26:09] uh what year was this 2014 so that would have been that might have been arkham night actually

[01:26:16] but like that was supposed to be like the lord of the rings version of the the bad man arkham games

[01:26:21] and there's a lot of hype surrounding it that makes sense one of rudders whatever reason okay yeah

[01:26:27] one of those kind of working against itself with that one but i mean the the fact that they

[01:26:31] can use the the arkham engine to do anything is kind of a benefit to them

[01:26:35] and they have that that proprietary licensing for it but um i never had a chance to play it

[01:26:44] but this is one that's on my list i think it might be on game pass now

[01:26:49] or at least shadow of war might be um so that might be one to look into that maybe i'm

[01:26:54] once i'm done with yeah steam definitely uh once i once i'm done with spider man and

[01:27:00] super mario wonder uh maybe i'll get into that one i'll need something to play

[01:27:08] so for it i think i will well looking at what you got right here and now um

[01:27:15] oh why do you think uh just people even want to play as these characters that makes it different

[01:27:23] it depends on how we're doing this because if we're talking like um the lord of the rings online

[01:27:29] you get to again build your own character have your own story in the world uh have it affect

[01:27:33] the world around you in some way um if we're talking about um specifically shadow of war

[01:27:40] that one i think is more just like the uh um what's the point of view character

[01:27:47] like i forget his name it's something silly but um you have that that point of view

[01:27:55] character that is your avid literal avatar into that world and again you're you're just kind of doing

[01:28:02] your own thing and i think the nemesis system makes that all the more appealing because again

[01:28:06] that the game in the world will remember what you have done or what you have failed at doing

[01:28:12] and i think that's that's a really cool concept that i don't think enough games

[01:28:16] really embrace and they just like have a story that while for the most part is probably entertaining

[01:28:23] the world isn't quite immersive enough to make you feel like you're a part of it

[01:28:29] and like you can enjoy a story you can be immersed in a story really but if you're really trying to

[01:28:35] get people to feel that immersion then what better way than to have the characters

[01:28:42] make fun of your avatar who is you so you know steve the orc took out this guy

[01:28:48] in three blows now steve the orc's a sergeant and he's gonna keep going and terrorizing you

[01:28:54] because you you suck and i think that's so cool going back and playing as air gorn or legolas or

[01:29:01] gimley unless there's new stories to be told i don't know that that's appealing enough

[01:29:07] because we've all seen these movies we've seen these stories like maybe it's a hot take

[01:29:11] um but i the the strider game that's coming out i think that's interesting because it's stuff

[01:29:18] we don't know about air gorn and it's before he becomes the king so there's a whole level of

[01:29:24] storytelling i haven't played i don't know if you have either but no i wouldn't touch golem if

[01:29:29] someone paid me and just something about it just was a big turn off for everybody in my life

[01:29:34] yeah the the aesthetic alone yeah no and yeah it was almost like they went let's make spider man

[01:29:41] but with golem where everyone plays as an anti hero that's bad that is bad

[01:29:52] yeah let's see where the ring's gone yeah and that's like one of the worst reviewed games

[01:29:56] of the year too um did you hear about um my guys over at the video game club um they they

[01:30:05] mentioned a story that i i didn't know but the studio um didalic i believe is how you pronounce it

[01:30:12] didalic entertainment they were like oh we're gonna make this better we're totally gonna make this

[01:30:17] better and instead they just went bankrupt and shut their doors they they released like or they have

[01:30:22] one final patch scheduled for the game and then they're just done with it because they're no longer in

[01:30:27] business apparently it's getting a switch release on december 14th lord of the rings golem that is

[01:30:34] that's insane that's like the only game from what i have seen of this game the only system

[01:30:40] this game would have worked any kind of magic on is the we and that's only because they had no

[01:30:47] no structure in terms of like quality control nothing else

[01:30:52] like i i worked at game stop in the we's heyday and there was a game called ninja bread man

[01:30:58] like they're there if you had motion control you could just do whatever you wanted

[01:31:03] i learned something every day and it's just eye opening that kind of like with morbius you know

[01:31:10] it's like people mistake attention is good attention i'm like you're not going to make

[01:31:15] any extra money even with people going to see it and make fun of it i just i don't know who

[01:31:21] they thought this game was for i mean good question there there can be a story where

[01:31:29] golem smigel is interesting and but it's such a loose premise of you have to play as smigel

[01:31:39] golem getting out of mordor yeah not to make a character that's pretty hated so yeah it's like

[01:31:47] that's that's a mission that you're trying to stretch into a 15 16 hour game i don't know how

[01:31:53] you make that interesting let alone the mechanics of it work good question but i think maybe that's

[01:31:59] part of where again we've gotten over 30 lord of the rings games since 1982 and most of them

[01:32:08] have been adaptations of some kind going back to the hobbit lord of the rings and it i think there

[01:32:19] there is a breaking point where the bubble of interest is just like how many times can you tell

[01:32:24] the same story over and over again it's like disney with their live action remakes like it's

[01:32:29] the same story you're just putting a new sheen on it what am i really getting out of it

[01:32:35] and in these cases i think there is more stuff within the world of lord of the rings and we kind

[01:32:40] of touched on at the beginning um the the amazon series i'm forgive me i'm forgetting the name of

[01:32:48] it rings of power um the rings of power thank you uh i enjoyed it i i don't know there's a

[01:32:54] there's a lot of people who don't like it because it's not necessarily 100 accurate to

[01:33:00] the appendices or the soma really or anything like that it was the movie yeah exactly and i

[01:33:06] think it's approachable and some people just don't like being having things be accessible to

[01:33:11] general audiences um considering what that would work with i hardly felt like it was a half-assed

[01:33:17] cash in but i don't know i'm tired of it i'm tired of having these arguments too it's like

[01:33:22] if you don't like it don't like it but don't yeah you're the final person yeah if you

[01:33:28] don't like something you don't have to watch it i mean i'm sure you guys probably with comics too

[01:33:33] yeah not every comic is made for everyone like uh one of my favorite writers right now is tom taylor

[01:33:40] who uh created uh i should yeah he i think he created he didn't create jonathan kent but he

[01:33:47] uh superman son jonathan kent uh he he wrote a story where jonathan kent got kidnapped

[01:33:52] into an alternate alternate dimension came back a late teenager like 18 19 and he told us

[01:33:59] really great story about how jonathan realized that he is bisexual and he found himself a boyfriend

[01:34:06] and superman is just like cool you're my son i love you you do what makes you happy but there

[01:34:12] are a whole bunch of people who are not for that like my superman's not gay and tom taylor's like

[01:34:18] well clark kent is not gay jonathan is bisexual have fun reading your clark kent stories i'm writing

[01:34:25] a different story guys no winning sometimes yeah and like then that's that's the the end of most reasons

[01:34:34] why i don't like talk about a whole lot of star wars on my show is because the gatekeepers and the

[01:34:41] the haters just like if you even mentioned the last jedi like holy cow the the the walls cave in

[01:34:49] and just like the end of the world is happening because you had a positive opinion on something

[01:34:54] within that film it was even that way even with return of the jedi's not as good as empire and then

[01:34:59] you had the ewok movies then you had the prequels and you had the cartoons and now yeah we're

[01:35:04] just now finally getting around to doing anything related to star wars lola and freddy and jason

[01:35:09] and we're just like but we were glad we waited it's way for just really just kind of take a

[01:35:14] left turn and see if it improves it didn't but just wait it out yeah i mean i i had i had my doubts

[01:35:21] i'm not trying to like hipster myself into this but like i had my doubts with it when disney

[01:35:26] didn't go in with a plan like that that's where that's mainly where my critique comes in i think

[01:35:31] at first it was the this isn't canon or now this is canon because we reprinted it but then it

[01:35:37] was just the abrams versus lucas argument and it's like and i think it's just once again star wars

[01:35:44] issue is it's designed to sell toys yeah pretty much but um if you say that to anyone who grew up on

[01:35:52] it oh my god it's badass i'm like okay cool but yeah i've got a got a couple of lightsabers that

[01:35:59] could argue differently that star wars is not a merchandising powerhouse but it's same like getting

[01:36:07] back on topic with lord of the rings there there is a merchandising potential but it's just i think

[01:36:15] part of it as well is that we have seen so much of this adapted into other mediums like with

[01:36:21] world of warcraft dungeons and dragons pretty much anything that's medieval fantasy

[01:36:27] has borrowed from that lord of the rings aesthetic as we were talking about earlier

[01:36:31] and so it kind of even though it is kind of the godfather of modern medieval fantasy

[01:36:38] it's also just it's the ocean it's a it's a big chunk of the water that's there but

[01:36:45] there's so much of it yes and some parts of those oceans we still drown in

[01:36:55] yeah definitely i mean anyone who's tried to read the sulmarillion might drown in that notion

[01:37:01] and yeah that's summerion i have always appreciated with but i have never finished i would begin a

[01:37:06] chapter then forget i had it then start again so dense yeah i i can't say that i've ever

[01:37:13] actually finished it but man if someone wants to condense that into a three-hour movie i'll probably

[01:37:18] go see it something do it but to kind of go back to the topic of what what draws people into this

[01:37:29] universe it's it's just a beautiful world like you could if if it's done properly you could

[01:37:37] just happen upon an elven tribe you could just happen upon a dwarven cave but you've also got

[01:37:46] dragons you've got mystical creatures it's just it is a beautiful world that just

[01:37:52] lends itself to different tastes for everyone beautiful world with evil and peril

[01:37:58] and yet still some hope exactly and if as long as you can give people a little bit of

[01:38:04] hope in their games or along with a beautiful aesthetic and an engaging combat system or

[01:38:11] traversal system whatever it may be i think that would make itself great but i we're in a really

[01:38:19] in terms of video games we're in this really weird niche of if it's not related to a pre-existing

[01:38:27] ip and this is for movies too if it's not a pre-existing ip then what how much money is it

[01:38:34] really going to make us even though like when i really got into gaming if you if there was a

[01:38:40] game that was based on an existing ip most of the budget went into just getting that ip and

[01:38:46] they made the crappiest game they could make they were just like we want to make this batman

[01:38:51] okay it's awful but it's batman hey superman we superman 64 we want to make a superman game

[01:39:00] well we have no money left because we just bought the license to the superman character

[01:39:05] what can we do the worst thing imaginable but ever since like probably the arkham games

[01:39:14] the arkham games are really kind of the first i uh i i shouldn't say the first like in modern

[01:39:21] era because you've got like turtles in time and a whole bunch of other like arcade games based on

[01:39:25] ip's that did a really great job the x-men arcade games that's like another one but

[01:39:31] we're in this new era where the ip is not the ip is supposed to be the draw

[01:39:39] but everyone wants to see what the gameplay is and that you want

[01:39:43] satisfactory gameplay and studios don't seem to understand that oh we don't know it's good

[01:39:48] plenty of that and it gets tiresome as you say because it's like well why even do this if you're

[01:39:54] gonna half-ass it exactly and and that's mostly i think the studio is just being like i don't

[01:39:59] understand they asked for a lord of the rings game we gave them a lord of the rings game what

[01:40:03] more could they do like a happy new mill and it's just like that's not what they asked for they asked

[01:40:08] for something that had a heart yep exactly and that's that's where i think a lot of this stuff

[01:40:14] is kind of missing the mark uh but if you can find that good niche where you make the game interesting

[01:40:23] the mechanics interesting and you make the world look interesting uh you'll you'll get something

[01:40:29] that people will really enjoy and i again i have not played the uh shadow games

[01:40:36] but from what i understand they are really good like if you like the witcher if you like

[01:40:40] assassin's creed much like range of power it may not be canon but they were doing their own

[01:40:45] things you can't really blame them for wanting to do that yeah definitely and and from what i

[01:40:50] understand it's it's a pretty decent story even if it's not like i believe it takes place after

[01:40:55] the events of the the trilogy so like it just tries to be its own thing but it and it does from

[01:41:03] what i understand and maybe it's something that i have to really play to understand but based on

[01:41:08] the the scores here at least for shadow of mordor or the first game it's getting high high mid

[01:41:16] eighties on metacritic uh based up for each version of the game and then pretty good

[01:41:22] shadow of war it didn't quite hit that same mark as low eighties and uh 75 for the pc version

[01:41:29] but that's the still probably a win for a licensed game in my opinion ultimately yeah

[01:41:37] you would think especially when you have a gimmick as good as the the nemesis system

[01:41:43] how have you been liking the nemesis system overall i i think it's a really cool concept

[01:41:49] i just again i haven't had my hand my chance to get my hands on it but i have seen like some

[01:41:54] let's plays where people are playing with it um but they never stick with the game because again i

[01:41:59] don't think the viewers really dive in that far into what makes the game so when they're trying

[01:42:05] to show off the nemesis system or they're talking about it by the time it actually gets to a

[01:42:10] point where they could theoretically show the benefits of the nemesis system they've already

[01:42:15] moved on from that series to a new one because viewership is like this is lord of the rings i've

[01:42:19] seen the movies i don't care one of these days we're gonna combat snobbery but well one thing

[01:42:27] people need to understand is that not everything has to be the best thing or the worst thing ever

[01:42:31] some things can just be it could literally be in between yeah yeah they could just they

[01:42:35] could be solid and that's fine my one of my favorite movies is the the first captain

[01:42:42] america movie starring chris evans like it's a very fine movie it's not the best thing marbles

[01:42:47] ever made but i i enjoy it it's one of the it's like return of the jedi it's just a happy meal

[01:42:54] it's it's something that makes you feel good and it's enjoyable for what it is it doesn't have to

[01:43:00] be the greatest interpretation ever since the last interpretation oh she should be

[01:43:07] yeah if it's not the best thing ever since the best thing ever then what are we even doing

[01:43:11] here why is it so forgetable why can't they make it good it's like i think you should it seems like

[01:43:17] you have to literally be in the industry for people to just shut up and realize oh you're only

[01:43:21] as good as just what are anyone gives a shit but yeah pretty much but i mean that for me that's

[01:43:29] all i really got i'm just gonna start repeating myself a little bit more on these lord of the

[01:43:33] rings games would you care to promote talking smack oh sure thank you um this amazing

[01:43:39] yeah my podcast is talking smack spell sm ac for superheroes movies animation and comics

[01:43:46] we talk superheroes movie i'm repeating myself uh yeah we talk all those and more tv shows

[01:43:54] animated features anime a little bit and uh every now and then we just kind of talk about what

[01:43:59] we're doing away from the podcast those are episodes called what you do in's and we also do

[01:44:04] and ours is based off of uh mendy from anemone axley hey mr man what you do when

[01:44:12] nice and uh we also do superhero showdowns which we call talking smack downs

[01:44:20] yeah we're we get fan suggestions on dream fights and we discuss whether or not who would win

[01:44:26] who would lose or if they would become friends i feel like that sounds like who would win

[01:44:31] who would win i i think we're following each other on twitter i'll double check that

[01:44:36] really funny we're gonna same kind of deal where yeah i'll double check them but you can find us

[01:44:42] in all your favorite pod catchers again talking smack sm ac we've got a big red and yellow banner

[01:44:47] and uh cam thanks so much for having me on anytime long time coming

[01:44:52] well we've got definitely taking over a year because of my my previous job

[01:44:56] ah it's fine at least you didn't have to deal with insomnia so you got that

[01:45:00] here you go well i appreciate your patience and getting me on uh dealing with my schedule

[01:45:05] anytime anytime all here for it man just life is short let's let's just have fun amen

[01:45:14] all righty guys so you know where to find them on the intro webs check it out check it out

[01:45:20] we'll return after these messages the jacked up review show podcast is honored to be part

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[01:45:37] there's something enlightening for everyone with this crowd of cool cats check them out

[01:46:06] you get the most delightful 30 minutes of your week so dig in it's brent viss time listen at

[01:46:12] brent viss dot com apple podcast or wherever fine podcasts are found do you ever find yourself

[01:46:17] thinking about who would win a fight between goku and superman hi i'm james gabsy and on the

[01:46:22] who would win show me and my co-host ray ignore anything important happening in the outside world

[01:46:27] and debate fictional battles between characters from comics movies and video games we got a

[01:46:31] new show every week and almost always am i the winner yeah not true ray in the past we've discussed

[01:46:37] such matches as captain america versus darth vader solid snake versus the iron giant classic matchups

[01:46:44] like robo cop versus terminator and even the muppets versus sesame street that one was crazy so if

[01:46:51] you're a fan of geek culture and love a spirited debate check out the who would win show wherever

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