Ring (video game) facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Ring |
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Cover art of Ring
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| Developer(s) | Arxel Tribe |
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| Platform(s) | Windows, Mac OS |
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| Genre(s) | Adventure |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
Ring: The Legend of the Nibelungen is a 1998 point-and-click adventure video game for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS developed by Arxel Tribe and published in North America by Red Orb Entertainment and in Europe by Cryo Interactive. The game is based on Richard Wagner's four opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen, and features music from various performances of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Georg Solti from 1958 to 1964, chosen in collaboration with PolyGram and Decca. French comic-book artist Philippe Druillet also worked on the game, providing much of the artwork.
The game makes a significant departure from the source material by binding the stories behind the four parts of the cycle with a surrealist science fiction background; the main plot involves a being by the name of ISH, who is guided by the voice of Erda (played by Charlotte Rampling), and who discovers the story of the Nibelungen.
Ring received largely negative reviews in North America, but was a commercial hit, with sales above 400,000 units worldwide by October 2002.
Gameplay
Gameplay is similar to Cryo's previous game, Atlantis: The Lost Tales. The game is played primarily from a first-person perspective which is controlled by the mouse. To speak to people or interact with objects, the player must click on them with the pointer. The pointer also controls the direction of movement. However, when ISH moves from one location to another, the game briefly switches to a pre-rendered third-person view.
The game itself is, as per the source story, divided into four levels which can be played in any order. An asteroid serves as a "hub" to the game, allowing level selection, and is also the location of the introduction sequence which presents all of the major protagonists. The game also ends on the asteroid.
Story
Set in the 40th century, the game begins with the introduction of ISH, one of the last surviving humans. Humanity has been enslaved by an alien race that destroyed Earth millennia ago, and took away all creativity and creative expression, meaning humanity slowly lost all sense of its cultural history. However, ISH is given the chance to save humanity by the aliens. They present to him the story of the Nibelungen, and have him embody each of the four main characters in the hopes that his experiences will lead him to lust for power, which is what led to the downfall of humanity in the first place. However, the goddess Erda believes she can help ISH by guiding him towards rejecting the desire for power. The four characters are Alberich (a cruel dwarf king), Loge (a fire spirit), Siegmund (the son of the god Wotan), and Brünnhilde (a Valkyrie warrior).
The story begins with Alberich arriving back in his kingdom to discover that he has very little left, nothing in the kingdom works, and his workers have formed a union and gone on strike. In order to break up the strike, Alberich must find something to satisfy the disgruntled workers, and with this aim in mind, he sets off to procure the gold of the Rhinemaidens.
The second part has the player in control of Loge. His story intertwines somewhat with that of Alberich's - in the employ of the gods, he is charged by Wotan with retrieving the Nibelungen ring and the magic crown of Wotan from Alberich.
The third section tells the story of Siegmund, son of Wotan, as he attempts to unravel the circumstances surrounding the death of his mother and sister.
The fourth section tells the story of Brünnhilde, Siegmund's half-sister, who saves him at the end of the third chapter. Her act enrages Wotan, and she is forced to flee to Valhalla where she can obtain a magic artifact to bring back to the asteroid on which the story begins - thus completing the titular "ring".
Sequel
In 2003, Ring was followed by a sequel, Ring II: Twilight of the Gods, which brings the cycle to an end, following the two last parts of Wagner's Ring des Nibelungen, Siegfried and Götterdämmerung. Ring II was met with extremely negative reviews and considered a failure.
