There is one realm I would always be down to play a game from. That realm is Lord of the Rings. There is one character whose back story hadn’t been explored in much detail, and we only hear and see bits and pieces in the movies. Gollum is that character, and the game was created based on him. It was supposed to delve deeper into his multiple personalities and explore his journey after he found the ring. This may have been a good idea until Daedelic Entertainment got their hands on it.
Gollum deserved better than it got. Daedelic Entertainment was famous for its point-and-click adventure games. When I heard they had the opportunity to create Gollum, I was all for it. The hype stayed high for me until we started seeing the game trailers, and then the reviews started coming out. I was disappointed by what I was reading and seeing, but I still wanted to get my hands on a copy, and then I did. At first glance, I could only see a PlayStation One game, early PlayStation 2, if we are even that kind about it.
Daedalic Entertainment.
Graphically, you have all these resources to try and source your material from due to the movies. The mocap options available give the possibility of a potentially great story and a way to tell it. We got a Gollum that looked more like a cartoon gremlin than anything. The movements of his eyes, his body motion in cutscenes, and his overall movement never felt fluid. You can tell when you look at the character art. The landscapes you wander through were the most impressive graphics in this title, but that doesn’t say much. Orcs, Ringwraiths, and other creatures seen in Mordor are designed a little better than the titular character, which is a sad feeling.
Gollum Is A Unique Idea Done Poorly
Mechanically it is hard to see anything done right in Gollum. The stealth was a slog; you could attack but only by bludgeoning your enemies from behind, and walking around the map felt more like playing Resident Evil 2, the original. The camera angles were not great as you climbed rock ledges and vines either. If you tried to jump to a ledge behind you but didn’t change your camera angle correctly, you would fall to the floor in failure. For mechanics that work well in Jedi Survivor, Uncharted titles, and even Tomb Raider, Daedelic just didn’t have the know-how in this type of title to accomplish what they set out to do. The number of times the map disappeared on me after I died and respawned was not very fun. It made it so I had to restart the game to try and continue. By then, there was no point in continuing the story any further.
Daedalic Entertainment.
I want to say that there was something good that you could pull from this game. However, they didn’t even draw on the established resources of the people who already voice the likes of Gollum and Gandalf. The voice actor who tried to voice Gollum didn’t even come close to Andy Serkis. It was not a good situation to help someone feel like they were taking on that persona. Maybe this voice actor, who probably tried his best, was trying way too hard to be something he was not. I have had people tell me that I sound like a spot-on Gollum. Perhaps someone else was better speaking, like Gollum, and they should have searched longer so that their players would have felt more immersed in the game world.
Gollum Won’t Be Getting A Redemption Arc
One ray of hope was when the studio stated that they would be working on patching the bugs and other errors in the game. I was hopeful for it and decided to push my review off for a while to see if I could compare the launch version to the patch version. Sadly this never came to pass as the studio itself was shelved like this game should have been. If the main company had given the studio a chance to fix some of its issues, it might have had a chance to win back the fans it should have had. Look at what happened with No Man’s Sky. Granted, this was a much smaller scale project than that, but even with all of the launch issues, it is now one of the best versions of itself, and everything released for it has been free. Daedelic could have taken some notes from Hello Games. It is sad to see a company fold because of one title, but it happens occasionally. With how things are in the world, companies must start putting their best foot forward in creating these titles.
I really wanted to have a new Lord of the Rings game to play and thought Gollum was a good character to fill in some of his backstories. Sadly this is not how I saw Tolkien’s work being set forth to the masses. There is a big void to fill, and I hope someone will pick up the reigns and lead us into the heart of Mordor, for Frodo.
A code for the game was provided by the publisher.
