When the announcement came that there was going to be a Lord of the Rings game coming out, I was excited. I love that franchise and the world that Tolkien built. I felt nostalgic for the games I enjoyed in the past, like Battle for Middle Earth, the Trilogy games, and especially Shadow of Mordor and War of the Ring. Probably loads more. When they announced the titular character was going to be Gollum, I was sceptical. Intrigued but sceptical. When I played it, I felt the same crushing disappointment I felt when the end credits rolled on Return of the King, and I knew there were no more Lord of the Rings movies (before the Hobbit was announced!). The Lord of the Rings: Gollum deserved to be better, but does this universally panned game have any redeeming features?
Gameplay
Gollum takes place between the events of The Hobbit and Fellowship of the Ring and sees Gollum recanting his time between these two moments in the timeline. He’s recounting this to Gandalf the Grey who is visiting him in an elven cell.
It isn’t all doom and gloom; however, you do get to meet some legendary characters from the franchise, which, if you’re a Lord of the Rings nerd like me, is a pleasure to see. There are also some good mechanics in the game, the mini-game where you get to decide which personality dictates the course of action, for example. Even the voice acting and score are solid throughout and will definitely make you feel like you’re in the universe. What doesn’t work, however, is everything else.
Stealth, Is Not My Precious
The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is a stealth game at its heart. The action is fleeting, and you’ll find yourself trying to creep through areas, unseen, and causing distractions for silent takedowns. This all makes perfect sense for Gollum as a character. It’s also challenging; if you’re seen, you can insta-fail the section and must restart from the checkpoint.
However, the mechanics aren’t reinventing the wheel; sadly, other stealth games have done it better. It’s also worth noting that you will spend much of your time running repetitive quests to fetch things for people or puzzles that lack sophistication or challenge.
Visuals
Visually, The Lord of the Rings: Gollum does look decent; the lighting is good, the textures are nice, and the world feels like Mordor. However, even with my high-end gaming system, I still experienced numerous moments of lag, graphical glitches and more. That, to me, means the game wasn’t that well-optimised for the PC version I tested.
The biggest visual problem comes with the character models. Many of them feel flat, with poor shadow and texture details, and when you’ve grown up with the books, films, and other games, it all feels a little off. Now, games, of course, can instil their own visual design language, but sadly, it didn’t work here. Gollum is the stuff of nightmares and could have done with work. The Wraiths looked far too clean, and the Orcs… looked too like one another.
Gollum Chases Bugs… The Game is Full of Them
Within the first 18 minutes of gameplay, I ended up in a cutscene, jumping a gap and being chased by two Orcs. Sadly, the game crashed, and I was stuck watching one of these Orcs running at the ledge as if they were stuck in a wall. I was nowhere to be seen, so restarting the checkpoint was the only way to try and get past this moment again.
Text warnings often lingered on the screen and didn’t fade away. This was useful when reading it, but it became distracting and frustrating when it blocked my view of the enemies I needed to keep an eye on.
That, combined with camera blur stutter when turning the camera around and just general stuttering switching between cut scenes and gameplay moments just felt cumbersome and rushed. Then there’s controlling Gollum itself. This is painful as Gollum feels clunky in his movement, not to mention inconsistent with grabbing and taking down opponents.
Final Thoughts on The Lord of the Rings: Gollum
I really wanted to like The Lord of the Rings: Gollum. I genuinely wanted to enjoy a unique take on a game set in the Lord of the Rings universe. Sadly, Gollum misses the mark. While the story is actually interesting, the gameplay, bugs and mechanics make it a painful slog.
