"Welcome home, Hobbit! Live the cosy life of a Hobbit in the wonderfully serene landscape of the Shire. Discover, decorate, & share in this idyllic corner of Middle-earth. Join friendly Hobbits & familiar faces awaiting your arrival in Tales of the Shire: A The Lord of the Rings™ Game."

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The graphics have a cartoon feel to them, but it works very well and is very nice to look at. I have a decent video card, but I found that the default settings that the game auto-detected for me pushed my card, made my fans run, and left me with a frame rate that was low enough that I noticed it while playing. I lowered my settings down to “Medium” for most of the selections, and while it stopped my fans blasting and gave me a very robust frame rate, I didn’t see any visual degradation, so not sure what that was about.

I turned the music off, because I play how I like, thank you. Having done that, you get this lovely backdrop of birds and running water that is very well done. Footsteps are just right, and change depending on surface. While sound doesn’t play a major role in the game, it fits well and I had no complaints.

I can tell that this game was built from the ground up for controller, but I had no serious issue playing with mouse and keyboard (my preference). If that’s your jam, you should find your experience in the Shire very controller-friendly. Camera control was tight and sensible, even in places where I was concerned (like the interior of your house, where I worried the roof would clip through; this was an unfounded worry, it reacted just right).

The gameplay loop was good, with a little bit of pressure to make more dishes and explore less than I wanted, but it’s fictional pressure because you can cheerfully ignore it. In a testament to how well the developers implemented that social pressure, I still usually gave in and made dishes fast enough to keep my visitors happy, even though I knew I could blow them off.

I really liked the overall sense of the Shire before the chaos that the Ring brought. It wouldn’t be my regular go-to because it’s a bit too cozy for me, and I do like some action, but the option to visit the uncorrupted Shire on occasion is pretty great.

I didn’t love the way the map was laid out, it felt squirrelly. I know it makes it more interesting, but it really didn’t add anything, and hedges that I’m apparently too weak to move through gave certain spots a too-visible sense of artificiality.

My rating: 9/10

Runs great on Debian.

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