The Lord of the Rings: Gollum Overview – Flawed Premise

At occasions, an occasion or character will be profoundly impactful to its originating fiction, however not the suitable alternative for a devoted highlight undertaking of its personal. It’s laborious to consider a stronger living proof than The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, a recreation that basically misunderstands the attraction of its supply franchise, specializing in a personality who, by nearly any measure, is the incorrect alternative for a lead. That stated, it’s not inconceivable to think about the sport which may in some way have made the weird premise click on. This isn’t that undertaking; like its depressing and piteous lead, this recreation is finest averted in any respect prices.

Gollum tracks the story of the titular fellow within the time interval between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, principally throughout his slavery and misuse in Mordor and the associated escape to pursue his treasured ring. With its drab colours, give attention to merciless and unappealing characters and chore-focused gameplay, it feels at odds with a lot of the core tenets and themes of Tolkien’s fiction. Even stripped of its connection to that vaunted legendarium, the storytelling is poorly paced, meandering, and sometimes incoherent. A promising exploration of the dichotomy between the Gollum and Smeagol character initially appears compelling however is rarely leveraged in a significant method. 

Gameplay is break up mainly between old school linear traversal sequences and clumsy, uninteresting stretches of stealth. In navigation of the phases, the leaping is imprecise, phases are poorly structured to speak the place you’ll be able to go, and the digital camera is unwieldy, or typically even damaged, flipping fully the wrong way up whereas climbing or refusing to rotate to view the subsequent vital soar. I died repeatedly and ceaselessly to jumps that ought to have been straightforward or mistakenly guessed the place the subsequent platform could possibly be reached. The one small blessing is frequent checkpoints to melt the blow of the countless repeats.

Whereas horrible, I longed for these platforming sequences each time the sport switched to certainly one of its plentiful stealth sequences. Not like any trendy stealth recreation, Gollum has no attention-grabbing tips or instruments to counterpoint these passages. As an alternative, the slippery protagonist can solely glide between the shadows previous immeasurably silly guards, alongside paths upon which it’s laborious to know whether or not you’ll be seen. No sense of mastery or management over the atmosphere emerges. Once more, respawns are fixed. At any time when the sport requested me if I needed to reload to the final checkpoint, it was a drive of will to proceed.

Technical issues and poor implementation abound. Sound mixing typically makes voices laborious to listen to. Character faces (apart from Gollum) are poorly animated or by no means. Onscreen figures transfer in excellent synchrony with each other, like one thing seen in early PS2 video games. Textures are muddy and lack element. Greater than as soon as, the sport demanded an goal that didn’t perform or seem and didn’t respawn upon a checkpoint restart; solely redoing all the stage would repair the issue.

I continually struggled in opposition to the controls, digital camera, and goals as they have been offered. And nothing concerning the story or characters of The Lord of the Rings: Gollum affords purpose to push previous the frustration. As a longtime fan of Tolkien’s fiction, it’s doable that I appreciated the sport even much less for the best way it appeared to misuse the supply materials. It’s laborious to have a extra damning indictment than to say that this Gollum recreation isn’t for followers of The Lord of the Rings, however right here we’re.