The Lord of the Rings - Gollum

Surprisingly competent 3D stealth platformer that has managed to accurately showcase one of the most famous anti-heroes in the world of fantasy entertainment. Despite its underdeveloped visual presentation, it is still one of the rare Lord of the Rings games that are worth playing.

The Lord of the Rings: Gollum shows us another facet of the iconic character that we haven't seen before. The story attached to the works of Tolkien and a deeper development but with a gameplay without great pretensions since the graphic level seems taken from an Xbox 360 or PS3 combined with all its technical errors make it the worst experience I've ever played.

Gollum feels like a game that would have had a hard time even ten years ago, as simply the basic framework of stealth and Uncharted climbing is not good and left me more frustrated than motivated.

Plagued by several problems and with gameplay far from modern standards, The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is not the third-person adventure that we would have expected from Daedalic Entertainment. Except for the good characterization of the main character and for an overall appreciable plot, the new game of the German software house fails to be convincing and represents a wasted opportunity to offer the right amount of entertainment to all Tolkien fans who have a good passion for video games.

The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is a game commendable for Daedalic's effort to tell a wholly original story in Middle-earth by mixing stealth and platforming mechanics, but it falls apart on almost all sides: imprecise controls, terrible AI, bland narrative , outdated level design and graphics from another generation.

Like Gollum’s war within, this stealth platformer struggles with its own identity while offering a thoughtful tale concerning the mind and travels of its protagonist.

The Lord of the Rings: Gollum was a bad idea on paper and is an even worse as a game now that we can play it, with a dull and boring plot and a gameplay formula that feels too old to be real in 2023.

The Lord of the Rings: Gollum shines brightest in the moments where Gollum has a dialogue with secondary characters.

The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is littered with technical and gameplay issues that dampen the fact that there's a great story at its heart.

Much like the namesake character himself, The Lord of The Rings: Gollum couldn't be saved from what it became. Frustrating platforming coupled with boring gameplay and cheap ways to die make any experience hard to play. Unfortunately, the intriguing setting and lore exploration can't come close to overshadowing the game's fundamental issues.

The Lord of the Rings: Gollum manages to appropriate the best features of one of the best and most complex characters created within an unquestioned mythology, but a limited aesthetic representation of the world surrounding it and sloppy movement systems prevent the the game from being as precious as it should be.

Sadly, The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is not the precious that we were looking for. Gollum's inner battle mechanics are fun but aren't a prominent feature in a game consumed by terrible platforming sections and dated visuals. Voice acting adds promise to the experience along with a stellar soundtrack, but there's no real reason for you to play this game unless you yearn for a retro platforming experience or simply love Gollum.

A superb Gollum isn’t enough to save the game he’s been parachuted into, which is by turns dull and frustrating. It’s destined for Mount Doom (the bargain bins). [Issue#29, p.92]

The Lord of The Rings: Gollum is one of the worst releases in a long time. The game seeks to be a AAA title, but has an unclear direction that makes it an anachronic, riddled with errors and with a mediocre experience for both fans and non-fans of one of the most important IPs of recent times in nerd culture.

I’m a big fan of the Tolkien universe, and I really wished Gollum, a game that no one wanted and asked for, would at least meet my already low expectations. I sincerely hoped to find a decent game hidden underneath all the technical issues. I also hoped that fixing the crashes and some of its other problems would eventually lead to an enjoyable experience. 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.

It is good to know that we already know the worst game of the year in May. Do yourself a favor and forget about The Lord of the Rings: Gollum – it is anything but precious.

One or two nice ideas and the unconventional main character do not save Gollum from boring gameplay, clunky controls and a technique that even Sauron would find too cruel.

LOTR: Gollum is a failure on almost every level. Beyond an interesting story, it’s hard to salvage anything worth your time in this adventure.

The Lord of the Rings: Gollum crafts a compelling story around Gollum and Smeagol, but it fails to craft a polished, stable or enjoyable gameplay experience. Unfortunately, The Lord of the Rings: Gollum isn’t the Precious we’ve been searching for.

Good ideas poorly implemented: Gollum's well-staged inner conflict in a coherent world with weaknesses that are rampant.

Gollum is probably the worst game set in the famous world, repulsive and unstable like the main character himself. The idea was really good and you can tell that the developers know and understand the source material, but the game they made offers outdated graphics, frustrating platforming, enormous amount of glitches and primitive stealth mechanics.

Ultimately, it's difficult not to come out of The Lord of the Rings: Gollum with a sour taste in the mouth. You can see glimmers of Deadalic's intent to create a different kind of Lord of the Rings game throughout, particularly in the ways it manifests its unlikely hero's unique psychological state, but those bright spots are quickly lost amidst all the other ways Gollum stumbles in its execution. Perhaps there is a Gollum game that could work at both a narrative and mechanical level, one that reframes our relationship with the iconic character to the point where people think twice before doing their terrible impressions of him at parties. Alas, The Lord of Rings: Gollum is not that game. I'm sorry to say it, but those terrible impressions are here to stay for now.

The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is a stealth, action and platform adventure that has some interesting ideas, but lacks cooking. A video game of classic structure whose gaps are evident both in the narrative, as in the playable, technical and aesthetic.

The Lord of the Rings: Gollum has the ghost of good ideas sprinkled throughout, but they're woefully hindered by dated graphics; stiff, wonky controls; endless bugs, glitches, and crashes; and in-game gimmicks that fail to live up to their lofty ambitions. King Theoden sums it up best: “You have no power here.”

The Lord of the Rings: Gollum tries to be a respectful homage to Tolkien’s masterpiece. Unfortunately, it’s expressed through buggy, unpolished, and not very interesting or enjoyable gameplay. Gollum is a fascinating and complex character, but makes a poor protagonist for an action game. Only ravenous fans of Tolkien will want to come near this game, and then only if they have a very high tolerance for crashes, bugs, and disappointment.

I constantly struggled against the controls, camera, and objectives as they were presented. And nothing about the story or characters of The Lord of the Rings: Gollum offers reason to push past the frustration. As a longtime fan of Tolkien’s fiction, it’s possible that I liked the game even less for the way it seemed to misuse the source material. It’s hard to have a more damning indictment than to say that this Gollum game isn’t for fans of The Lord of the Rings, but here we are.

What could have been Daedalic’s chance to break into mainstream has ultimately backfired. A waste of a license, riddled with performance issues and just downright ugly gameplay, Gollum should be cast into any nearest fire, let alone a wasted trip to Mount Doom.

Gollum is a complete failure.

It's hard not to lament the potential wasted here. [Issue#386, p.120]

The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is so broken on every level that just proves that having enough material and a rich universe to work with doesn't necessarily guarantee a good outcome if you don't know how to make a video game.

This game was clearly a challenge too big for the developer and they should have been saved from this embarrassment. This game doesn't do the Lord of the Rings franchise, Daedalic or Nacon any favors and it would be best if they avoid games of this size and for a while. With its extremely poor character design, lackluster, boring gameplay and bug ridden mess, this is one title even the biggest LotR fan should avoid.

At its core as well, Gollum as a protagonist was never going to be all that enticing, despite his intriguing personality in the books. The surrounding game and narrative had to be absolutely stellar to sell Gollum as a compelling protagonist, and Daedalic fails full stop here. And it's a shame because the team are very obviously Tolkien fans aiming to tell a good story set in Middle-earth. However, at the end of the day, the game on release would have been better off never leaving its cave.

Bland, boring and glitchy. The Lord of the Rings: Gollum fails to deliver a good LOTR experience.

The Lord of the Rings: Gollum doesn’t do anything fun or interesting like similar (better) games like A Plague Tale: Innocence and Requiem. It’s hard to say if even the most loyal Lord of the Rings fans would actually find something worthwhile here. Considering good Lord of the Rings games exist, this one feels incredibly out of place.

Ugly graphics, amateurish animations, awful controls, a confused level design and many, many bugs and errors, including some that are completely unacceptable. Gollum’s stealthy journey towards freedom cannot be redeemed, not even by a solid story that cleverly enriches Tolkien’s universe.

I struggle to think of a positive experience over the thirteen-odd hours I spent playing this game. Gollum is uninspired and dated and The Lord of the Rings fans deserve better than this.

The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is a messy and frustrating action platformer set in Middle-earth. ... Most of the gameplay involves platforming and stealth, though neither works very well. Gollum is full of technical problems that make an otherwise unpleasant experience even worse, and the game’s boring story makes it hard to recommend, even to the most hardcore Lord of the Rings fans.

With dated design, LotR: Gollum is a slow and tedious slog through Middle Earth that even the staunchest LotR fans will struggle to enjoy.

Essentially, what I’m telling you is that The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is indeed a bad video game. It’s not fun when it works, it’s even less so when it doesn’t, and the overall concept of the game is one that ultimately makes it feel unnecessary altogether. I don’t know of anyone clamoring for Gollum’s whereabouts to this degree, and if they were, I’d at least hope they were expecting something far more interesting than this. So yes, believe what you’ve heard, The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is not worth your money, and certainly is not worth your time.

As if Gollum hasn't had his fair share of suffering, Daedalic Entertainment has decided that we have to share some more with him. Unfortunately, a potentially intriguing angle of storytelling and an ever-interesting world this time falls short in every sense imaginable - crashes that occur more often than you can count, unpolished gameplay, inconsistent voice acting and storytelling... Sadly, there are a few things more precious than your time - the time you could spend elsewhere, not playing a game that has lost its direction and, unfortunately, turned out plain bad.

Daedalic had an opportunity to prove the cynics wrong when so many people wondered what the hell the point of a Gollum game would even be. Instead, they handled this with such utter clumsiness they likely ensured a game like it will never happen again.

The very few redeeming values present in Lord Of The Rings: Gollum buckle under the enormous weight of mediocrity that it carries. It tries, but the game is about as forgettable as one of the thousands of orcs slaughtered in the films.

The graphics, the animation, the UI, everything here looks like we've gone back a good 17 years. The technical state of the game is also bad, reminiscent of clinical death, making the game almost unplayable. [Issue#328]

From its abysmal graphics to its utter failure of delivering Middle Earth in any interesting way, this is an example of a game that should be scrapped from its concept inception.

There are fun things to do with Gollum in a game by itself, but everything failed with The Lord of the Rings: Gollum. The controls do not feel right, the level design is outdated, the music does not match situations, visually it is very inconsistent and we could go on and on. Better is just the short conclusion: avoid this game.

The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is nothing more than a failed project that should have been cancelled, but since it is a lucrative IP, it was released to the market to deceive the unwary and that, gentlemen, is a scam that should not be be tolerated in this industry.

Utterly shambolic in almost every way, The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is an abject failure as a stealth and traversal game, continuously tripping over itself with technical incompetence to such an extent it’s virtually impossible to recommend. Featuring monotonous climbing and sneaking mechanics, cheap deaths from heights akin to a paddling pool, a boring structure, plain and uninteresting characters, a host of technical blemishes, mostly-poor visuals, a woodpecker-quality soundtrack, and an overall dismal and trying experience, The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is absolutely atrocious. Much like its protagonist, it’s a cursed product that should be cast into the smoldering fires of Mount Doom.

The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is a buggy mess, even disregarding the constant crashes. Not only that, but it is a game void of any personality, originality, or bravery. It attempts nothing new and falls back on tropes that started falling out of style years ago, while somehow still managing to replicate them poorly. It disappoints me not just as a fan of the Lord of the Rings, but also as a fan of video games in general.

The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, like the titular character, is ugly, malformed, and infested with bugs.

Much like Gollum's quest for the One Ring, my quest to complete The Lord of the Rings: Gollum was full of endless setbacks, impossible odds, and ever-increasing levels of madness. And, like Gollum, my journey was doomed from the start. So if the developers' main goal was to really put you in the shoes of such a pitiful, unloveable character faced with constant pain and suffering at every turn, they were at least successful at that.

The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is a broken mess of a game. There are barely any redeeming qualities to be found amidst what can only be described as a massive missed opportunity. There is some serious potential in a single-player linear Lord of the Rings experience like this, but with outrageously dated level design, clunky controls, a severe lack of polish, muddy and unimpressive graphics, and a dull story, Gollum completely misses the mark. As massive fans of the books, films, and games, it's sad to see that there is nothing precious about this experience.

One of the worst games of the year, The Lord of the Rings: Gollum has many performance problems, bad technical quality and little inspiration. It’s far from the standards that the fans of the Tolkien universe are used to. A big mistake by Daedalic that even the delays weren't able to fix.

Broken beyond belief but also a fundamentally bad idea for a video game, with inanely shallow and repetitive gameplay - Gollum is not only the worst mainstream game of the year but of the last two generations.

The Lord of the Rings: Gollum was conceptually a game with some promise, but from what I've seen so far, it's a mediocre and messy experience that doesn't really come together into a cohesive whole. That is, of course, before coming to the bugs, the crashes and the game-breaking progression issues that make it impossible to complete at this time. Considering that I was actually looking forward to this, this one really stings.