At instances, an occasion or character may be profoundly impactful to its originating fiction, however not the fitting selection for a devoted highlight mission of its personal. It’s onerous to consider a stronger working example than The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, a sport that essentially misunderstands the attraction of its supply franchise, specializing in a personality who, by virtually any measure, is the incorrect selection for a lead. That stated, it’s not not possible to think about the sport which may in some way have made the weird premise click on. This isn’t that mission; like its depressing and piteous lead, this sport is greatest 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, largely throughout his slavery and misuse in Mordor and the associated escape to pursue his valuable 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 isn’t leveraged in a significant means.
Gameplay is break up mainly between old school linear traversal sequences and clumsy, uninteresting stretches of stealth. In navigation of the levels, the leaping is imprecise, levels are poorly structured to speak the place you may go, and the digicam is unwieldy, or typically even damaged, flipping totally the wrong way up whereas climbing or refusing to rotate to view the subsequent needed bounce. I died repeatedly and incessantly to jumps that ought to have been straightforward or mistakenly guessed the place the subsequent platform may very well be reached. The one small blessing is frequent checkpoints to melt the blow of the infinite repeats.
Whereas horrible, I longed for these platforming sequences each time the sport switched to considered one of its plentiful stealth sequences. Not like any fashionable stealth sport, Gollum has no fascinating methods or instruments to complement these passages. As an alternative, the slippery protagonist can solely glide between the shadows previous immeasurably silly guards, alongside paths upon which it’s onerous to know whether or not you’ll be seen. No sense of mastery or management over the surroundings emerges. Once more, respawns are fixed. Every time the sport requested me if I needed to reload to the final checkpoint, it was a pressure of will to proceed.
Technical issues and poor implementation abound. Sound mixing typically makes voices onerous to listen to. Character faces (excluding Gollum) are poorly animated or under no circumstances. Onscreen figures transfer in good 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 degree would repair the issue.
I consistently struggled towards the controls, digicam, and goals as they have been offered. And nothing in regards to the story or characters of The Lord of the Rings: Gollum provides cause to push previous the frustration. As a longtime fan of Tolkien’s fiction, it’s doable that I favored the sport even much less for the way in which it appeared to misuse the supply materials. It’s onerous to have a extra damning indictment than to say that this Gollum sport isn’t for followers of The Lord of the Rings, however right here we’re.
