The Lord of the Rings: Gollum struggles to live up to the lofty expectations set by its iconic source material. With its clunky controls, lackluster level design, and uninspired gameplay, the experience falls flat, leaving fans of the franchise to only further question why there is a Gollum-focused game to begin with.

He Hates and Loves the Ring, as He Hates and Loves Himself

In The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, players will dive into the twisted mind of one of Middle-earth’s most enigmatic characters, Gollum. Set between the time after he had lost the One Ring of Sauren but before the fellowship, players will be given a fresh new look at this franchise’s beloved character in a story yet told in either films or games. It’s a serviceable story, though given that this takes place during a time when things were less exciting in the franchise, we can understand the lack of significant setpieces happening. What does take the spotlight of the campaign is, well, Gollum himself.

It’s hard not to compare Daedalic Entertainment’s interpretation of Gollum without referencing Peter Jackson’s version due to how similar they look, though, to be fair, the movies did seem to nail down how Tolkien described him as. He’s a hobbit (formerly named Smeagol) who, after finding the all-powerful Ring of Sauron, had spent long centuries isolated from the world to feed into the never-ending obsession of his most precious possession, the One Ring of Sauron.

What was once a peaceful and loving Hobbit has now been transformed beyond recognition, as most of his hair and teeth have fallen out, with his body becoming thin and disproportionate. But his eyes were always the most standout features, as they were described as inhumanly large with a lantern-like glow.

The films, whether you liked them or not, did capture both Gollum and Smeagol perfectly, and we’re happy to see that Daedalic Entertainment took notice of this, as their version of the split personas resembles Jackson’s interpretation.

There are some minor differences here and there, but for the most part, I’m glad that Gollum maintains what I’d considered to be the best version of him yet. And in terms of his personality, or, huh, personalities, I think Daedalic did a decent job with him here as well. Albeit, it won’t beat Andy Serkis, as that’s a really high bar to beat, but seeing the conflict between both Smeagol and Gollum did keep me entertained enough to care for the character.

I also liked that the story offers players choices, some as simple as deciding whether or not to run from a fight, while others put the life of a character in Smeagol and Gollum’s hands. Moral choices that pit the two against each other, with you choosing a side and trying to convince the other personality that you’re making the right choice. The more times you side with a specific personality, the more and more it becomes dominant throughout the game, making it harder for the other to win arguments. It’s a great feature, though I wish it featured both personalities in the same scene, such as the films did, giving the illusion that two characters are at odds.

Unfortunately, that’s about all the praise I have for The Lord of the Rings: Gollum because once you start moving around in this game, you immediately feel like you’ve been transported back to the stone age of gaming.

Curse the Baggins!

First, let’s get the visuals out of the way. The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is a very, very, VERY ugly game. I’m usually someone who doesn’t mind that, as I don’t believe every piece of media should be pushing for cutting-edge visuals, but this really does look like something out of the PS2 era of gaming. The character models don’t look good at all, despite my praising the design of Smeagol/Gollum. The environments don’t fair any better as textures clash, some detailed, while others look like they’re still loading in but never do.

In general, it’s all so boring to look at. Being a game set in the Lord of the Rings universe, you’d think the environments and visuals would be amongst the game’s highlights, but they’re generic, lack variety, and not to mention extremely static. The first half of the game takes place in the same area, and it gets so tiring because you already saw it a few hours back.

There’s also nothing going on in it, either. Sure, you’ll occasionally get a few lightning strikes here and there, some wind, and an overflow of lava, but that all gets overshadowed by the dull and lifeless NPCs littered all over the place. They don’t do anything, and I don’t mean that as in you can’t interact with them; I mean, they don’t do anything other than stand there staring at you like a deer caught in the headlights. They’re just there but never present for anything that happens.

It’s such a bizarre thing, almost as if someone forgot to program them. It would have been as effective as not having them there at all — that’s how little they matter. I can understand when a few are doing that, but when it’s nearly every non-killable NPC, there is a feeling of lack of life in this world created by Daedalic Entertainment.

Going back to the environment, it’s also not a pleasant experience to play around in. It’s very straightforward, easy to know where to go. That’s not the problem; the problem is getting through it as it does everything possible thing to work against you. I don’t mean that in the “this is hard” kind of way either; I mean it in the this is a buggy, unpolished, and out of your control kind of way.

Perhaps it’s due to how Gollum controls, but he gets stuck on literally everything in the environment. You could be running down a path only for him to come to a sudden halt because there’s some invisible polygon clipping out of the ground. Other times he’ll get stuck trying to scale a wall or grab a ledge incorrectly and begin clipping through it. Many times my jump became broken, causing whatever this effect was.

The platforming is by no means good. Gollum tends to magnetize to whatever ledge he wants, even when it’s not the one you’re aiming for. Gollum doesn’t like going where you want him to go, and a good chunk of mechanics, such as wall running, can be frustrating as they don’t work half the time. You’ll plummet to your death a lot, which is even more frustrating as Gollum will slide past a ledge sometimes because you pushed the joystick just a bit too much. There’s no quick black screen to respawn you back to that ledge; it’s just an immediate game-over screen. The positive is that respawning back in is instant, but that also reveals another ugly issue — the checkpoint system.

I honestly don’t understand how the checkpoint system works in this game. I’ve seen it checkpoint just a few steps after another checkpoint, while in other areas, I’ve had to scale an entire wall from bottom to top, only to get flung off at the very top for reasons unknown and have to redo the whole thing, including the objectives in between. There was one section where it autosaved as I was dying, only to reload me into a game over. I think the studio knew this was an issue because the multiple times I’ve had this happen, the third reload would cause the checkpoint to shift slightly back. Not to mention some random progression bugs require you to restart the level entirely to fix. It all adds more to an already frustrating experience.

Outside of platforming, Gollum’s primary way of getting around is by stealth. The stealth is nothing special, basically what you’d expect from Gollum. I will say that the AI are pretty dumb. However, that is perhaps a blessing in disguise, considering all the other issues related to platforming and the environment, as it can be annoyingly easy to get caught. Then you need to do it all over again and pray that Gollum doesn’t get whiplashed across the room.

He has an ability that scans the environment like any other stealth game, and from time to time, he’ll also be able to command some companions. The companion system is as barebones as it can be, and it doesn’t get expanded upon as you continue, despite receiving a unique one later in the game.

Not So Preeecious

The premise of a Gollum game was already questionable when it was first announced, but I tend to be optimistic, as I usually find the oddest ideas to be the most surprising, that is, if, and only if they work. Sadly that’s not the case with Gollum, as it’s more of a game going through the motions without ever finding its footing in the process. It has some cool ideas and attempts to execute them, but they never once felt realized throughout the journey. Couple the somewhat uninteresting story and the frustrating, clunky gameplay to accompany the rest of the game; there’s little for me to recommend here, even to die-hard Lord of the Rings fans. It’s a bummer, though I suppose many can say they saw this coming. I just wanted something to scratch that Lord of the Ring itch, but I guess I’ll be waiting even longer now.

Score: 3.5/10

Pros:

• Gollum’s design is good

Cons:

• The gameplay is clunky, with constant wrestling in the environment over control. Expect to die a lot for a lot of dumb reasons that aren’t related skill level.
• Horrendous checkpoint system.
• Dated visuals, with a lack of variety in environments. It all begins to blend in after a while, making it tiring to play through.
• A flat world – NPCs that aren’t enemies or main ones stand there, doing absolutely nothing.
• Additional gameplay mechanics, such as the companion system, never really gets fleshed out. That’s on top of some of the repetitiveness of some early game objectives.
• Gollum has emotes for some reason that I can’t even understand what purpose they even serve outside of looking dumb and out of place.