I knew The Lord of the Rings: Gollum would not be a contender for Game of the Year, but I hoped that the richness of history and narrative that is Middle-earth and the fantasy world of JRR Tolkien could stand up to this platform title. and stealth despite its weaker gameplay elements. Not surprisingly, many would argue that Gollum isn’t charismatic enough to base an entire video game on, and the decision to create a story that best suits Peter Jackson’s The Fellowship of the Ring in a single scene (the one we … (I briefly meet Gollum in the mines of Moria and then Gandalf tells Frodo what happened to Gollum in Mordor.) teaches us that the actual narrative here is nothing special, even if it has many tongue-in-cheeks and references to other stories and contains events from Middle-earth.
The plot, as said, explores the years (yes, years) that Gollum spent as a slave to the orcs in Mordor and then as a prisoner to the elves in Mirkwood. Spread over ten chapters, the first six chapters are devoted to exploring much of the same dark and grim landscapes of Mordor, as Gollum is largely confined to the same lands as a slave. And while Gollum isn’t a slave in the game’s Black Forest sections, the same repetitive level design applies.
This design is also strangely casual at times. At various points, Gollum remains trapped in a prison wagon and is virtually unable to move before a loading screen appears. It makes you wonder why that 40 second travel time even exists in the game and why it’s used so often as it kills any momentum that builds up in the title. There are a few moments that use completely different gameplay systems, such as a Crash Bandicoot-esque running section that Ella-Laraña escapes from, but those are few. With a title that aims to engage through a compelling narrative, one would expect something more along the lines of Uncharted, where the plot always progresses and takes you to new areas and locations, and yet “Gollum” seems to want you to feels like the protagonist’s ugly and deformed creature: a prisoner with no escape.
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But at least the story has interesting twists and moments, right? Well, unless you’re staring at the screen, when Gandalf the Grey, Mouth of Sauron, She-Laraña, Thranduil or other iconic Middle-earth characters appear, not much actually happens. It’s all about Gollum trying to survive and doing whatever it takes to get the One Ring back, which is exactly the same Gollum story that we’ve seen every time the character has appeared on screen over the years. The title at least tries to add compelling gameplay elements to the overall dynamic of Gollum and Smeagol’s split personalities, which work like some sort of debate dialogue, but in practice feel incredibly hollow and rarely used.
Since the narration and dialogue options aren’t particularly well developed, the focus is on the gameplay, and that’s one of the most frustrating parts of the game. Gollum is neither a strong nor a brave character, which means that you are always on the hunt, trying to outwit the dangers that come your way. As you can imagine, stealth is a big part of the game, but it’s not stealth like in Hitman or even The Last of Us, it’s very basic and hardly perceived as a serious gameplay feature. You can hide in shadows and under certain objects, interact with very rare things and throw rocks to briefly distract enemies, and when the time is right you can trample and strangle individual enemies to death, although this takes time. time and makes a lot of noise. Since the enemy NPCs are incredibly stupid, there’s no need to get creative with the stealth segments, which goes against how stealth is supposed to work. And then there are the platforms.
The platforming sections remind me of an Uncharted game, and if there were a better offering of stealth or combat combined with a more compelling story, it would have the building blocks for a Middle-earth version of Uncharted. However, Gollum fails on those last few points and instead the game is 80% jumping and waddling on ledges, and you wouldn’t be wrong if you thought that the more time you spent doing it, you’d get bored. The biggest problem with platforming, however, is that the controls are terribly poor and is the usual killer in these sections of the game. The platforms are clunky and messy, making you want to bang your controller against the wall when Gollum gets too far in a jump any platformer character would catch. I can’t understand why this game is so difficult to control when there are so few unique mechanics and elements in the game, but it is.
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This brings me to the next negative point I see in The Lord of the Rings: Gollum: There is no progression. As the story progresses, Gollum does not gain any new movement abilities or items. The game mechanics are the same at the beginning and at the end, so there are no surprises along the way. Well… apart from the Companion system, which is used very occasionally and allows you to tell a partner what to do (e.g. pull a lever). If this sounds exciting to you, now control your expectations as this mechanic is rarely used and when it is used it is minimal at best.
When it comes to moving off the beaten path, there is not much to be said against it. LotR: Gollum is a very, very linear game, and each opportunity to explore is usually tied to a collectible placed in a section of a level. Honestly, these collectibles aren’t worth the effort as they don’t add anything from a story standpoint and they don’t improve the gameplay in any way. The fact that there isn’t even a difficulty level says a lot about this game.
Then there’s the performance. Frame-rate wise there were a few dips on PC, but nothing major and overall the game’s presentation is pretty good. The character models are terrible though, and Daedalic moved heaven and earth to make Gollum look as ugly as possible in the cutscenes, which makes you wonder why we see the character that way. Otherwise, LotR: Gollum is riddled with bugs and weird minor issues. Whether it’s characters opening doors without interacting, NPCs walking through objects, jumping textures, cutscenes losing their sense of perspective and camera positioning… there are lots of little things that make it a little harder to get bright moments in this one find game.
I’d like to say that Daedalic hit the nail on the head with this game, because I’m tired of disappointing titles. But The Lord of the Rings: Gollum can’t keep up at all. The gameplay is flat and repetitive, stealth is poorly implemented, the narrative is boring, there is no progression, ugly character models, bugs galore, the list goes on. It’s a game that in practice looks like it belongs in the 2000s due to its super-linear design and limited gameplay. Someone should take it back to the fire on Mount Doom where it came from.
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