Book Review: The Hobbit by J.R.R Tolkien

December 20, 2022 ragglefragglereviewsLeave a comment

The Hobbit by J.R.R Tolkien was first released in 1937 and was the first story in the Middle Earth series and acts as a prequel to the Lord of the Rings, it tells the story of Bilbo Baggins a hobbit who enjoys the simple things in life, sitting by the fire, reading books and smoking his pipe, one day Bilbo is visited by Gandalf the Wizard and a band of Dwarves who wants his help to steal a vast treasure from the Dragon Smaug who lives inside of the Lonely Mountain.

I think this book does a fantastic job at displaying character growth and change, this is especially prevalent with Bilbo Baggins who begins his journey as a hermit and a recluse, hiding away in his Hobbit hole and living a boring life ending the story as a Hero, someone who has experienced the outside world and now understands a greater value of themselves while still enjoying the simpler things in life.

The Dwarves minus the leader Thorin Oakenshield are mostly forgettable and struggled to maintain my interest, Thorin definitely has the most character development due to his tough nature and general grumpiness towards Mr Baggins, he is also a Dwarven King who is desperately trying to reclaim the Dwarven home in the Lonely Mountain.

Gandalf plays a small role in this story as a means to bring our band of heroes together, he comes and goes as goes offering small bits of advice to Thorin and company but overall does not stick around and takes a step back in comparison to his role in the later Lord of the Rings story. I think Gandalf’s absence here is actually to the books benefit for a few reasons, first of all he is far too powerful and while the orcs and goblins are a threat in this they would be no match for the more powerfully superior Gandalf the Grey.

The other reason is because his absence gives Bilbo more of a chance to become a hero by using his wits and quick thinking to solve problems in ways that are unique to his character. Gandalf is not only a very powerful magic caster but is also incredibly wise and intelligent so would already know the best ways to defeat enemies. Bilbo uses his quick thinking to trick the creature Gollum during his game of riddles not only saving his life but allowing him to keep the magic ring he found.

The main purpose of this story was too expand into the Lord of the Rings so Bilbo discovering the ruling ring is the most important and prevalent part of the book, here the ring does turn the wearer invisible but Middle Earth was still not fully imagined so Mount Doom, Sauron and the Nazgul were still very much absent at this point.

For as short as this book is coming in at only 304 pages Tolkien’s writing style allows for some decent world building without taking away from the main story, the descriptions are subtle but do the job in allowing readers to fully imagine how Tolkein had drafted the different areas such as Rivendell and the Mountain to be.

Some major differences worth noting between this book and the three motion picture adaptations are as follows

During the scene with the trolls in the movie Bilbo keeps them talking about how to cook the Dwarves before the sun turns them to stone but in the book it is actually Gandalf who tricks them by throwing his voice to sound like one of the other trolls.

In the book Bilbo gets his Elven blade sting from the Trolls cave where as in the movie it is first discovered by Gandalf.

Saruman and Galandriel are not mentioned in the book but do make appearances in the motion pictures.

Radagast the Brown is one of my favourite characters in the book but his role is vastly increased during the movies,

In the movies we get to see fan favourite character Legolas make a return, he is not mentioned in the book

Finally Azog the white Orc leader is not in the book but is part of Middle Earth lore being killed years before Bilbo’s Journey.

Other major differences are in connection with character deaths that I do not want to spoil here.

I have read the Hobbit three times and it I cannot wait to read it again, it is one of my favourite stories and holds a very important place in literary history, if your not a fan of reading I recommend listening to the story read by Andy Serkis (Voice and character actor for Gollum) he does a fantastic job and even commits to his iconic Gollum Voice!

This is one adventure you surely do not want to miss out on

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Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 (1994) Review

September 30, 2019September 20, 2019 ragglefragglereviewsLeave a comment

Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 is the follow up to the highly successful Super Mario Land 2: Six Golden Coins. It has Wario as the main playable character which was a first for the Mario Universe.

After being booted out of Mario’s castle in Mario Land 2, Wario travels to kitchen Island hoping to steal a golden statue of Princess Peach from the notorious Sugar Pirates, he will then sell the statue back to Mario for the cost of a new castle.

In a similar fashion to Mario Land 1 and 2 Wario Land is a 2D platformer but this game is not as simple as getting from point A to point B because it has a new style of gameplay that helps it to stand out compared to its predecessors.

Your main goal in Wario Land is to collect coins, you can find many coins in the 40 levels of the game and you can also use keys to open doors to hidden treasures that will add value to your final money count.

Wario can also collect hearts and once enough are collected he will earn a new life.

In the game Wario can also find items to help him traverse the stages. these items come in the form of hats allowing him to ram, fly and and breathe fire onto his enemies and certain terrain.

The boss fights in this game are the best in the Super Mario Land series, there is boss for every world and they are all very unique and they cannot all be defeated in the same manner, some can be jumped on but others need to be attacked with certain items or by having items thrown at them.

After every level Wario can play one of two minigames, one allows him to throw items at enemies to earn more heart points and the other is a gambling game where he can earn more coins, I really struggled with the heart game so I stuck with the coin game throughout my playthrough.

The best part of collecting money in the game is that how much you collect will determine your final reward, I was lucky enough to get my own planet which is the highest reward, I recommend finding all of the treasures because it is a lot of fun and they are quite easy to find once you get the hang of the game.

The soundtrack is ok for the game but its really not anything special, I had the same issue with the Super Mario Land 2 soundtrack so hopefully the music is better in the later Wario Land games.

A lot of the levels look very similar in design which is fine but I would of preferred the developers to take more inspiration from the different worlds of the game and maybe tried to theme the levels to suit the foods they are based on.

Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 is the best game in the Super Mario Land trilogy, it is a lot of fun and gave the series a new spin in its gameplay and platforming, I love the idea of getting different rewards based on how well you did in the game as it added a lot of replay value. The game is very easy but is a lot of fun, my only complaints are the similar stage designs and the medicore soundtrack but putting these two things aside this is possibly one of the best games for the original Gameboy and was a great debut for Wario as a playable character.

9/10

hope you enjoyed this review of Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 for the Nintendo Game Boy.

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Tomb Raider 2013 (PC, 360,PS3) Review

July 7, 2014April 27, 2015 ragglefragglereviews2 Comments

I have wanted a really dark, action filled and serious Tomb Raider game for quite some time now, little did I know that in the year of 2013 my dream Tomb Raider game would become a reality.

A lot of people were sceptical when this game got announced and I am not going to lie I was as well, but can you blame us for being sceptical over a Tomb Raider game with an age rating of 18. The idea of a Tomb Raider game having such a high age recommendation is un-heard of, so how was this new Tomb Raider? lets take a look

You play as Treasure Hunter Lara Croft

Lara and her crew are on a Research Vessel called the Endurance, Lara and the crew are looking for the Lost Fleet of Kublai Khan. When Lara notices an island in the distance she tells her crew that she wants a closer look, upon approaching the Island the Research Vessel is split in half separating Lara from the rest of the crew. Lara goes searching for the rest of her crew and she eventually finds her friend Sam who is sharing the heat of a fire with a man called Mathias.

Lara falls asleep and awakens to find both Sam and Mathias missing. Later on Lara discovers that Mathias and a bunch of other men have Sam captive and plan to use her as a sacrifice to Himiko the sun queen. Himiko’s soul is transferred to different females generation to generation, when one Himiko gets old or dies her soul is then transferred to the last chosen Himiko, Sam is the female chosen to be part of the soul transfer ceremony.

Also some mysterious force is preventing Lara or anyone else from leaving the island. Lara’s new mission is to find the rest of her crew, rescue Sam and to discover the curse preventing them from leaving the Island.

Tomb raider has such awesome game play, Lara will find multiple tools and weapons through out her adventure such as pickaxe which will allow her climb mountains, rope which she can shoot from her bow to bring down doors and to help her get to hard to reach areas.

As well as useful tools Lara is also carries a pretty kickass arsenal of weapons this includes a Bow and Arrow, Hand Gun, Shotgun, Assault Rifle and a Grenade Launcher. Each weapon has its own uses the shot gun can be used to destroy wooden barriers that may be blocking your path, the grenade launcher can be used to blow up metal doors and the bow and arrow has multiple uses such as setting fire to wood and explosives and it also helps Lara to use the rope to more of an advantage.

By far the most useful weapon is the bow and arrow not just because it has multiple uses but it can also be used to take out enemies quietly, if there is a group of enemies Lara can shoot an arrow at a near by wall, this will cause some of the enemies to search away from that area leaving just one poor guy to be killed without anyone else noticing.

When your not sneaking around and killing bad guys, Lara will stumble across some unfortunate environmental hazards these can include Lara falling into a fast flowing river and having to avoid any obstacles in order to survive, or she may be running across a bridge which is quickly falling to pieces beneath her feet. One of my favourite parts of the game is about half way through Lara is using a parachute and has too avoid trees so that she doesn’t get injured.

So what happens if you aren’t able to avoid these obstacles? oh dear

As well as this the game controls perfectly, I played on keyboard and mouse and found no difficulty getting use to the controls what so ever, I even played a bit using an Xbox 360 controller and again the game controlled perfectly so no complaints for that. I do however have one complaint about the game play, There are way too many quick time events in this game, I don’t mind a couple but at least 50 percent of the game play requires them and it really gets annoying after having to use the same quick time events for the same things over and over again through out the game.

Now as it is a Tomb Raider game you will be pleased to know that there are loads of hidden tombs that Lara can raid, when in these tombs you will usually be faced with a puzzle or two before you are able to reach any treasure that hidden within the tomb.

As well some awesome game play, tomb raider also has a really awesome soundtrack, the music is all orchestrated and it sounds beautiful a lot of the time the music made me wonder if it was composed by John Williams because the music really sounds like something out of an Indiana Jones film, as you can tell this suited the game quite nicely.

Tomb Raider a Survivor is Born

A beautiful soundtrack needs some beautiful visuals to go with it and let me just say you wont be let down with the way the game looks. Everything in the game looks amazing and you can tell that the developers really went a long way to make this game as breathtaking to look at as it is to play.

First of all Lara’s new character model is so freaking cool, she has this really awesome roughened up look to her that just says “stand in my way, I dare you” but she also doesn’t look like a complete killing machine which allows the player to sympathise with her character.

Here are a few pictures of the Island

Seriously the graphics and visuals in Tomb Raider are amazing, the game would often play a cut scene and when it returned to game play I wouldn’t move for a minute because I thought the cut scene was still playing, yeah the visuals are that good.

Tomb Raider was an incredible game, this is by far my favourite Tomb Raider game ever and it’s also the only Tomb Raider game I have enjoyed enough to actually finish, It has flawless controls, really awesome game play, breathtaking visuals and a beautiful soundtrack, the only problem is the constant quick time events and I really hope they work on those for the sequel.

Tomb Raider was one awesome adventure 9/10

I hope you enjoyed this review of Tomb Raider
If you respect my opinion I will respect yours
By Padawan