Review of “The Lord of the Rings: Gollum” – a divided hero in an outdated presentation

My impressions of the game in the latest addition to the world of Middle-earth and the Lord of the Rings are as ambiguous as the personality of the main character, Gollum, is ambiguous. From adventure veterans Daedalic Entertainment, the game throws out mouth-watering looking lures only to find a hook that bites and won’t let go. This applies to almost every part of the game.

• Platform: PC (Verified), Switch, PS4, PS5, X1, XSX|S
• Publication date: 05/25/2023
• Developer: Daedalus Entertainment
• Publisher: Finally
• Genre: Action-Adventure, 3D Platformer, Stealth Action
• Czech localization: No
• Multiplayer: No
• Data to download: 45 GB
• Game time: 15–20 h
• Price: 1199 CZK (couples)

The first thing that catches your eye is the appearance. She really doesn’t look good on Gollum. I don’t want to just mindlessly compare the game to some of the previous generations of consoles, but it certainly doesn’t fit in with the current one. After all, you yourself can judge the schedule by the attached screenshots.

In almost twenty hours, I ran into every graphical error imaginable.

Not only bad animations, but also countless glitches are uncomfortable to watch. In almost twenty hours, I ran into every graphical error imaginable. Arbitrarily, this is a mixture of objects, interruption of light, or a complete lack of animation. Not only textures bounce, but entire objects. It happened to me more than once that the character spoke, but did not clap his hands, or, on the contrary, clapped his hands and was silent.

If we consider the glass half full, then at least the authors avoided more mistakes. But then I should not forget about jerks and freezes that do not depend on the graphics settings, probably when adding locations. In this case, the game does not save downloads.

I went to Gollum expecting a stealth adventure game. I did not dream of an AI revolution or dozens of different solutions. But in the end it turned out that stealth is a less important part of the gameplay. Of course, you’ll be sneaking around and using basic moves like hiding in bushes and shadows, luring enemies with a thrown rock, or strangling a poor goblin when no one is looking. However, they are mostly shorter transitions between other activities – mostly platformers – and besides, they are mostly strictly linear. There will also be several larger locations with several different paths, but they are more like units of cases on the surface for almost tens of hours.

Not only graphics, but also stealth lagged behind by so many years compared to the current representatives of the genre. It offers really few options, the artificial intelligence doesn’t seem that big either – its thinking is limited to calmness, a gray question mark, a yellow question mark, a red question mark and an exclamation mark. You’ll quickly learn how much you can afford and the difficulty drops drastically. If you wanted to spice up the game with action, you’re out of luck. Any collision with an enemy means an immediate reload of the previous checkpoint.

Much more time-consuming than stealth is the aforementioned platforming – jumping on platforms, ramps, trellises, vines and other things that can be grabbed and that are in the environment, regardless of whether this makes sense. It’s not that bad, you need to get used to the controls, but after a while it starts to move quite dexterously. However, in some places you can find places where, for some reason, it is impossible to perform a wall run, time a jump, or estimate a distance. At the moment when you have to repeat some passage for the tenth time and, perhaps, someone else is chasing you, such situations become extremely unpleasant.

If we dwell on a few more gameplay suggestions, the events will also present Gollum with some logic puzzles. Several in the sense that they can be counted on the fingers of one hand, and logical in the sense that they are either excruciatingly easy or whimsically complex. In even fewer cases, you will be able to give orders to companions. But the mechanics are clearly flawed.

Gollum is a very specific anti-hero that the developers had to deal with. You already know how they dealt with his physical conditions, but what about his mind? Finally, after the unpleasant words above, I can praise a little more. Gollum, although he looks a little different, will be pleasantly familiar to viewers of the film trilogy. The relationships between the central couple in the same body – Sméagol and Gollum – are interestingly built, and the fact that the player can intervene in them makes them even better.

Decisions can be divided into different categories: sometimes you have a free hand in which of the votes you prefer, other times you choose how to behave, and only then find out which of the two prevailed this time. A convincing mini-game awaits you with the largest selection. Nothing revolutionary, you just need to think about what arguments to break this or that person in your favor.

The believability of Gollum is also aided by the very good dubbing of not only the protagonist, but also poor lip sync. The style is very similar. In my opinion, the developers have well balanced realism and cinematic with some cartoonishness and lightness. I really like the chosen style, but it does not interrupt the overall impression of the already discussed visual.

The authors decided to place the story in parallel with the beginning of the Fellowship of the Ring. And besides the questionAs Gollum escapes from Mordor, I don’t know how. it’s set pretty nicely. The game is really very narrative, chatty if you will. You will see a lot of videos, as well as interesting characters, mostly with retold destinies.

After four or five chapters, I still felt like I was in the prologue.

The length of the first half of the game and the lack of environment interfere not only with the plot, but also with the gameplay. We move in the space of ten chapters, but otherwise the passage can be simply divided into two parts: goblins and caves, elves and forests. Smaller stories, interesting characters, and Gollum’s disagreements do not overshadow the unimaginativeness of the larger narrative, which becomes unbearably monotonous. After four or five chapters, I still felt like I was in the prologue.

I regret that I have to write about The Lord of the Rings: Gollum mostly negatively. Sometimes I felt great while playing. When I managed to convince Gollum to listen to Sméagol. When I took revenge on the traitor. When I entered the place where the elven rituals were held. When epic – and by the way very good, not copied – music began. When Sméagol realized he had a friend… such a scene could be touching.

How is it possible that a mix of good ideas with a Lord of the Rings license isn’t a 2023 game?

Therefore, what remains on my tongue is not a curse, but a question. How is it possible that a mix of good ideas with a Lord of the Rings license isn’t a 2023 game? It looks and plays like a name from years ago. Added to this are defects that would have been pointed out years ago. Even at the reduced price, I cannot recommend Gollum in good conscience.