14 DAY TRIAL // 
Nacon is trying to step up their game and be known not just as a controller and accessories manufacturer, but also a serious publisher. Their biggest title, based on The Lord of the Rings franchise, just hit the market, and just as its main character, Gollum, suffers from an astounding number of issues. Somewhere under the hood there is a game, but you might not have the patience to find it.
The concept of Gollum is intriguing and worthy of attention, as it brings us the story of the most wretched creature created by J.R.R. Tolkien, Gollum. The developer itself, Daedalic Entertainment, also has quite a “clean” track record, being especially popular among adventure game fans, but also developing different types of games, like Styx or Barotrauma. So how did things end up so bad?
The answer is probably worth a lengthy study and a whitepaper for the ages about how to squander a valuable license and release an unplayable game. In all fairness, we have to mention this from the start: in its current form, after the Day1 patch, The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is an unplayable mess. It crashes randomly anywhere from 5 minutes to 10 minutes; it fails to transition correctly after cutscenes, often dropping the character in a mess of polygons.
On top of that, the game suffers from many other technical errors that make it impossible to play. Not even a die-hard fan equipped with the patience of Aragorn will be enticed to tackle the game. What’s even more painful considering that the game crashes very often is that Gollum doesn’t allow you to save manually.
Just like many other similar games, Gollum uses a checkpoint system, so often times you’ll have to play the same segment over and over again because your game crashed. Even if you skip the cutscenes, due to the random nature of crashes there is no warranty you will manage to reach the next checkpoint. It’s more likely that you will replay the same section again and again, praying to RNG for the game to crash after you hit the next checkpoint.
If you have the iron will akin to Gimli’s appetite for food, and hope to find some hidden gem underneath all the technical issues, you will be sourly disappointed. The only things I found were neglect and a gameplay structure that is just bad. In some respects, Gollum reminds me of some PS2 games, the ones that lack any kind of originality.
From start to finish, you play as Gollum in dark and monotonous closed spaces, trying to sneak around driven by schizophrenia. Although it could have been an interesting gameplay twist, the rivalry between Gollum and Smeagol, as two personalities housed in the same traumatized brain, the mechanic has no real effect on how the story plays out.
Taking place between the events from The Hobbit and The Lord of The Rings, the game tries to present the period during which Gollum was incarcerated in Mordor. Again, there is plenty of potential since you get a glimpse at the inner workings of this nightmarish place, trying to hatch an escape plan while meeting some characters that could have been interesting and original.
Instead, we get events that are beyond cliches: orcs complaining about their superiors, corruption running up the ladder, which are lacking any logic. If you force yourself through countless crashes, you’ll find out that Gollum should enjoy a privileged status by the order of Sauron. He is not supposed to die, since he carries precious information. Yet, the tasks he has to face are the most dangerous and impossible ones like hoard wargs into pens, light bombs in the dankest tunnels, or retrieve tags from workers who died surrounded by lava.
In the end, it is not just the technical problems, but the entire gameplay and story structure that betrays the game completely, offering one of the worst experiences. Even after changing the landscape, the gameplay and the scenario plays out following the very same patterns, yet with different actors, in the same empty spaces.
Regardless of the setting, the NPCs act the same, as some lobotomized characters who were given very simple and limited tasks making them feel completely artificial.
Visually, the game suffers from the same lack of logic and consistency. From the annoyingly low-pitched Mordor, Gollum travels travel to places and meet characters with a visual style that has no relation to the books, movies, comics or any other media released based on The Lord of the Rings universe. There is no real atmosphere or style, as Gollum plays and feels more like a generic PS2 game that was put together using random assets.
The framerate drops during cutscenes, followed by mandatory crashes, are the least of the game’s problems. The controls are all over the place, lacking any accuracy whatsoever, the textures are washed out and boring, and even removing options like HDR setting or the hair physics for Gollum did not manage to make the game more stable. The animations are stiff and often ridiculous. Also, it’s very noticeable that the characters in the background are actually 2D and not 3D.
The Good
- The Lord of the Rings universe
- Makes any other Lord of the Rings game look like a masterpiece
The Bad
- Complete, utter mess
- Unplayable due to crashes
- Boring and unoriginal gameplay
Conclusion
Alas, this game does not seem to be redeemable. Even if the development team manages to fix the plethora of crashes and errors, the game itself is faulty at its core. There is no trace of an enjoyable experience, and Gollum is doomed to remain in the game’s industry bin.
Review key was provided by the publisher.
