Why ‘The Lord of the Rings: Gollum’ is Worth a One-Way Ticket to Mount Doom | games

In ‘Gollum’, you deal with the unglamorous-skinned – you guessed it – Gollum, the unfortunate hobbit who gets the Ring and then loses it again, with all the consequences for his mental and physical health. The game takes place parallel to the events of “The Fellowship of the Ring”, but from the point of view of Gollum who is on the trail of the ring.

Since the main character is a weak shadow of a hobbit, it wouldn’t make much sense to suddenly drop him into an action game, so developer Daedalic Entertainment chose to make Gollum a stealth adventure. So, like Gollum, you sneak through the shadows rather than confront, though you also have a sneaky Direct death Available to kill unsuspecting enemies. Plus, as in the source material, Gollum is also a skilled climber, so you can also look higher if the ground floor feels too hot under your feet. It all sounds like a great concept for a fun game, until you actually start playing it.

To put it straight: “Gollum” doesn’t work. Or rather: “Gollum” has not been working for a long time. Because many times the game will simply crash your console for no apparent reason. It can’t be the graphics that push your PS5 to its limits, because at its best it can only pass for a late PlayStation 3 title.

What’s more: if you’re a bit unlucky, the game crashes in such a way that you instantly lose your save data and have to start over. Not that a sane person would do that, because there’s plenty of fun to be had even when the game doesn’t stutter and unfortunately can’t be experienced.

Gollum is a very linear game. This in and of itself isn’t a problem, of course, as long as there’s enough variation in missions and levels. Spoiler: There is no such difference. Everything feels like you’ve done it hundreds of times before, in much better games too. And while the idea of ​​basing a game on a character as atypical as Gollum sounds interesting, it soon becomes clear why the band opted for more athletic types: Gollum is as fragile as a wet leaf and hardly has any stamina. This makes the gameplay not very challenging, but particularly frustrating.

Is there nothing positive to say about “Gollum”? However, the soundtrack and voice work are excellent. Just like in the movies, Gollum/Smeagol regularly argues with his alter ego and although the voice actor is clearly not Andy Serkis, he manages to up the game a bit on his own. In the most epic scenes, the music also fits well with the resonant compositions you’re used to from the “Lord of the Rings” movies.

Unfortunately, “Gollum” became the chronicle of an heralded failure. A game that has raised more and more eyebrows with each trailer since the project was revealed in 2019 with questionable graphics and gameplay that seemed stuck in the mid-2000s. Unfortunately, the end result is getting worse, because countless mistakes and crashes ruin all the fun. Maybe patches can fix this in the long run, but in its current state, Gollum certainly isn’t worth the asking price.

The game is available for PC, PlayStation, and Xbox.