With regards to artwork, I am one thing of a masochist. I hearken to music that the common listener would possibly describe as “unlistenable.” I relish within the skin-crawling cringiness of the key movement image musical Cats. I gravitate towards video games that make me beat my head in opposition to the wall, for higher or for worse. Nonetheless, each ache junkie has their restrict, and The Lord of the Rings: Gollum pushed me to mine–and then some.
The long-delayed stealth journey from Daedalic Leisure, centered round considered one of Center-earth’s most iconic (if not precisely likable) characters, doesn’t merely miss the mark right here or there: It is an unbridled catastrophe of really epic–like, Tolkien-level epic–proportions. Past its overly easy degree design, jarringly dated graphics, and deeply uninteresting gameplay, The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is damaged to the purpose the place it is practically unplayable, making it one of many worst makes use of of a licensed property in latest reminiscence.
The sport begins in Cirith Ungol, the Orc-infested outskirts of Mordor, some 60 years after Bilbo Baggins stole the One Ring from our slimy, frail protagonist, Sméagol–or Gollum, as he is come to be identified. Going down not lengthy earlier than the occasions specified by The Fellowship of the Ring, the crux of the story is immediately recognizable to anybody even peripherally accustomed to the sequence: Gollum should discover Bilbo and take again his “treasured” at any value, whereas avoiding the wrath of Sauron alongside the best way.
You management Gollum in third particular person (besides when swimming, weirdly). Being barely able to lifting a steel spoon, not to mention wielding a weapon, fight will not be the main focus, save for infrequent alternatives to sneak up from behind for a strangle-kill, which he is in some way capable of muster the power for. As an alternative, the sport revolves round all issues stealth. You make the most of comparatively sparse climbable surfaces to creep round from above, crawl via the shadows to remain out of sight on floor degree, and throw stones to knock out lighting fixtures or distract guards.
Earlier than going any additional, we have to handle the elephant (or Mûmakil, if you’ll) within the room: Within the state it was in at time of evaluate, The Lord of the Rings: Gollum was not able to be performed. In my roughly 11 hours of playtime on “Efficiency” mode on a PlayStation 5, the sport crashed over 120 occasions (sure, I counted; masochist, keep in mind?), averaging about one crash each 5 minutes. After my Twentieth-or-so crash, I obtained the dreaded “save knowledge corrupted” message, solely to appreciate I might misplaced half a day’s progress upon reloading. In a number of different situations, game-breaking bugs–such as a companion I used to be charged with defending immediately dying again and again for no discernible reason–forced me to restart complete ranges, shedding important progress. Lastly, throughout an particularly tedious and time-consuming puzzle, the crashes turned too frequent to probably make it to the following checkpoint in time. Decided although I used to be to get via to the top and make these setbacks really feel worthwhile, I threw within the towel at 40% completion, defeated.
After struggling via and beginning a brand new recreation, overwriting the information from my unique playthrough, I attempted turning off a setting I had beforehand neglected: “Gollum Hair Simulation.” Doing so considerably decreased the variety of crashes, although it didn’t appear to have a lot of an impact on different main bugs all through. All that this setting appears to do is make Gollum’s hair look somewhat bit greasier and extra fluid, which–if you ask me–doesn’t precisely sound well worth the near-constant rebooting. As such, I extremely advocate ensuring that this setting is turned off, in the event you determine to place your self via this recreation.
Past these probably game-ruining points, The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is packed to the brim with all different kinds of bugs, starting from hilarious to white-knuckle-frustrating. Typically, I loaded into checkpoints solely to seek out myself caught within the floor, earlier than promptly dying in a disgusting gurgle. Different occasions, I obtained caught in “crouch,” or turned unable to maneuver fully, forcing me to restart the sport. Cutscenes continuously finish abruptly, slicing off the frequently out-of-focus NPCs mid-sentence. A harrowing escape scene will likely be set to dramatic music in a single run, after which fully silent the following. The checklist goes on.
Past its overly easy degree design, jarringly dated graphics, and deeply uninteresting gameplay, The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is damaged to the purpose the place it is practically unplayable
Even within the uncommon situations when the sport is buzzing alongside with no hitch, the graphics in The Lord of the Rings: Gollum are remarkably unrefined for a 2023 launch. The environmental artwork design may be compelling from a distance, significantly within the hellish underground fortress of Barad-dûr, the place you spend a lot of the first half of the sport as a prisoner-slave. However up shut, the vines, rock faces, and pits of fireside that make up the world round you might be largely flat, missing intimately, and generally simply straight up blurry. Bubbles underwater solely come into body if you stand nonetheless, and seem as immobile, hand-drawn circles. A number of the cave artwork inspected in Gollum’s den early within the recreation seems to be prefer it might have actually been drawn in Microsoft Paint. The NPCs look extra on par with characters you’d count on to see in 2011’s The Lord of the Rings: Warfare within the North than a current-gen recreation. And whereas Gollum himself is relatively spectacular by way of artwork and animation, his cartoonishly cross-eyed type will not be for everybody, and even he usually seems out of focus. Once more, the checklist goes on.
Daedalic has mentioned a few of these points will likely be addressed with a day one patch. What will likely be fastened stays to be seen, however in its pre-patched state, this recreation is just too removed from completed to suggesting anybody play it, not to mention contemplating its $60 price ticket.
Now, technical achievement is not the only figuring out issue relating to enjoyable. There are many examples of video games that have been riddled with points upon launch, however, carried by the power of their gameplay, nonetheless managed to be an general fulfilling expertise. Sadly, The Lord of the Rings: Gollum will not be an instance of such a recreation. Its most obtrusive gameplay challenge is its mission design. Sans a number of barely extra in-depth targets at large story moments, nearly all of your duties quantity to some model of, “Observe the particular person!” “Accumulate the factor!” or, in a single case, actually “Stand in line!” It will be one factor if these missions befell in a big, open-world surroundings, however as a substitute, nearly all of them within the first half of the sport are set within the cramped confines of Barad-dûr, the place you are compelled to repeatedly revisit most of the identical places with a purpose to progress the story. The sport is fully linear, so the trail to the following checkpoint all the time feels on rails, leaving no actual room for exploration or outside-the-box considering.
The cookie-cutter nature of the missions will not be offset by a very enjoyable or creative traversal system, both. Getting from level A to level B virtually all the time entails using the identical small set of tools–namely, climbing a predefined path on a wall, shimmying alongside ledges, and leaping from monkey bars. It seems like they cherry-picked a number of of probably the most primary climbing mechanics from the video games that popularized them, however didn’t contextualize them with the variability or freedom essential to make the expertise rewarding.
With regards to stealth, the gameplay is not any much less primary, largely because of the befuddling incompetence of the enemy AI. Crawling via the shadows is sufficient to hold you hidden from the Orc guards. They might even discover you making your method throughout a room and go to analyze, however in the event you enter a shadow in time, you may be absolutely invisible to them, even when they’re no various inches away. Sometimes you may must take away a light-weight supply to make it via, which the Orcs reply to by strolling over, observing it for a second, after which returning to their path with out turning it again on.
Although the gameplay is, most of the time, too simple, you might be considerably hindered by Gollum’s stats. Your stamina, which is required for operating and climbing sure objects, depletes rapidly and reloads at a snail’s tempo. Your well being is equally fragile; you are taking fall injury from generally hilariously low heights, and assets to replenish HP (worms and mushrooms, largely) are few and much between. There are not any new skills or upgrades to unlock within the recreation. Whereas it is a probably attention-grabbing concept to mirror Gollum’s withered nature within the character’s lowly base stats, it finally ends up enjoying out extra like an annoyance than a significant storytelling machine.
The story is, nonetheless, the very best factor that The Lord of the Rings: Gollum has going for it, and it is backed by an appropriately epic soundtrack. Moments of dialogue between Gollum and his alter-ego Sméagol, the place you should persuade the opposite persona to go together with a call, function attention-grabbing glimpses into the inner ethical battle of the character that made him so archetypal within the first place (even when the voice appearing guiding these scenes pales compared to Andy Serkis’ iconic portrayal within the movies). A handful of recent characters add some context and texture to what is likely one of the least explored durations of time in Tolkien’s sequence.
Even so, they might have gone a lot deeper, and the sport surrounding the story is in the end an excessive amount of of a distraction for it to really feel really resonant. Daedalic may need been higher off investing extra assets into enriching the story and approaching the sport as considered one of its hallmark point-and-click adventures, as a substitute of capturing for the celebs. Because it stands, there could also be sufficient right here for lore-hungry diehard followers of the sequence to sink their enamel into, however for the common participant, the story cannot shoulder the load of the remainder of the sport.
Very like Gollum’s quest for the One Ring, my quest to finish The Lord of the Rings: Gollum was stuffed with infinite setbacks, inconceivable odds, and ever-increasing ranges of insanity. And, like Gollum, my journey was doomed from the beginning. So if the builders’ foremost aim was to essentially put you within the sneakers of such a pitiful, unloveable character confronted with fixed ache and struggling at each flip, they have been at the least profitable at that.