The game manual admitted that extra events had been thrown in that weren't in the novel but it also stated they were "totally in keeping with the fantasy world created by Tolkien". This is a debatable point. I can't be certain but I'm reasonably sure there weren't any 'Heavy metal Orc bands' in The Fellowship of the Ring or any of the other novels!

I didn't like 'Lord of the Rings - Part One'. The system used was trying to be too complex for a humble 8 bit computer to cope with properly. The graphics were very poor and you had to be some kind of patient mind reading insomniac to solve it! (Apologies to all those who did solve it, but I found it slow and very frustrating).

It took two years for the second part of 'Lord of the Rings' to appear, but appear it did in mid 1987. However, compared to the first part, 'The Shadows of Mordor' was quite small, coming on only one cassette packaged in crystal cassette case. It was at least a lot cheaper (only £7.95) as a result. The cover illustration showed Frodo standing beneath a giant spider, impaling it with a glowing blade. Nearby lay Sam, cocooned and awaiting his fate.

On a 48k Spectrum the game was text only. On a 128k machine graphics would pop up every so often on their own. (48k users could view all of the graphics as a slide show loaded separately from the game). The graphics were a major improvement over those found in 'Part One', but they were still quite crude when compared to other illustrated adventures of the time (Terry Greer's pictures in the Interceptor games Heroes of Karn, Jewels of Babylon etc… on the Spectrum come to mind).

'The Shadows of Mordor' was naturally based on the key events described in J.R.R Tolkien's second book in the series 'The Two Towers'. You started the game by choosing whether you were to play Frodo or Sam, and it didn't take long to find Smeagol lurking around. To get him to help, you had to tie him up with rope and make him promise to behave himself before you let him go free! A great deal of co-operation was then required to build a raft to cross the swamp. The Black Riders made an occasional appearance but they were very easy to avoid. By simply waiting in the same location they would fly off and leave you alone!

'Mordor' wasn't very large when compared to other adventure releases of the time. It only had a couple of real tricky puzzles and most of those involved getting other people to perform tasks for you. I remember finishing the game without really knowing how. One moment I was wandering around and the next moment I was being told I'd won! The end of the game left you on the edge of Mordor, having got past Black Riders, Orcs, swamps and giant spiders along the way.

Unfortunately, the wait for part three proved to be infinite because Melbourne House was sold to a rival publisher, (Virgin Mastertronic I think). Beam sent out video cassettes to a number of prospective publishers in 1988 outlining their latest products, including the third (and final) part of 'Lord of the Rings'. I don't know whether programming had started on part three, because what was on the video was a text only adventure that could easily have been part two on the Spectrum. As it turns out the third part never appeared in any shape or form and the license ended up going to Interplay (who have since turned out two rather average r.p.g products).

Looking back, my personal favourite is still 'The Hobbit'. My strongest memories of the other games are the slow game system, the poor graphics and the bugs.

In a strange way Philip Mitchell and his team were ahead of their time - the 8 bit machines just couldn't cope with the game system they created. If they had a good PC to create their games on who knows what they could have gone on to achieve?