The Tyalië Mára Award

Award graphic.The Tyalië Mára Award is my personal distinction for the top Tolkien computer games in the world.

When reading the list, bear in mind that it is one man's vote and not to be taken too seriously. You have every right in the world to disagree with my selections. I have made this list only because some people have asked for it and as a quick guide for those who do not want to browse through all the pages to read my opinions of each game.

The award icon was made using Tengwar Sindarin, one of Dan Smith's Tolkien fonts.

List of the best games

Category Title Comment
Text Adventure The Hobbit Software Adventure Partly for nostalgic reasons, but it is a true classic.
RPG The Lord of the Rings, Vol. II: The Two Towers For its spirit and for its amusing bugs.
MUD   It was years since I played a MUD seriously and have too little on which to base a fair judgement, but contact me if you want to nominate a MUD.

Strategy

War in Middle Earth It is really about time for something new in this category...
Action Shadowfax So simple, yet so much fun.
Parody Kingdom O' Magic British humour at its best. Honourary mention in this category to Retarded Creatures and Caverns.
Add-On/Scenario War of the Ring for Warlords II Unfortunately, I have not played the scenarios for Civilization II, nor Heroes of Might and Magic II.
Freeware Angband In spite of it not being very concerned about following Tolkien's letter, it is a great game.
Commercial The Hobbit Software Adventure Later games may surpass it in terms of technical performance, but not in terms of feeling.
Graphics Kingdom O' Magic By Bob Plested, et al. In particular, some beautiful animations.
Prose Thror's Ring By Tom Zuchowski. Tolkien games should not be written in American English, but this one is very good and I could not pass it over.
Soundtrack The Lord of the Rings, Vol. I (disk version, not CD-ROM) By Charles Deenen, who has never even read a word by Tolkien.
In Tolkien's Spirit Riders of Rohan Follows Tolkien's plot very closely.
New Game 1999   The 1999 games are still being evaluated. Nominations are welcome.
Best Tolkien Game The Hobbit Software Adventure The category of all categories. Let me assure you, the choice was not an easy one to make.

 


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