The Lord of the Rings: Gollum Reviews
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.
The Lord of the Rings Gollum is a game that came out of time. the title almost never convinces in any of its aspects, resulting in many parts frustrating. the game optimization itself never manages to be stable making it difficult to play.
Review in Italian | Read full review
The Lord of the Rings Gollum is a game that has a lot of technical issues that also ultimately drag its presentation back. However, it still is a charming game in its own way with its setting, writing, and some incredible environment design that can catch your breath at times. This game is a cautious recommendation for players that aren't Lord of the Rings enthusiasts.
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.
I was looking forward to, at least, a delivery that met the minimum quality of this generation, even knowing that Gollum was not going to offer us the adrenaline that we can get from other characters mentioned above, for example. But it has not been so, The Lord of the Rings: Gollum needs a lot of work if it wants to position itself as a decent delivery.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Gollum just feels so shockingly old hat—a disheartening collection of mechanics that, at best, bring to mind one of the lesser pre-2013 Tomb Raider games and, at worst, suggest leftovers from the N64 bargain bin. Every success involves wrestling the loose controls, unhelpful camera, and iffy collision detection into submission against an ever-increasing wave of bugs and glitches, only some of which have been fixed by the game’s Day One patch.
We were very sorry not to give at least enough to The Lord of the Rings: Gollum. But the limits are too many. The portion of unpublished history is not up to Tolkien's saga and the playful phases are inaccurate and obsolete.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Perhaps it’s thematically fitting that the game itself is such an oddball outlier that’s been met with cruelty and misunderstanding since its announcement. There’s poetry to that, but it didn’t make my 11-hour playthrough any more enjoyable.
The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is often a nasty fried potato, even for great Lord of the Rings fans.
Review in German | Read full review
The game is not very good and unfortunately quite boring. We would have liked something more epic on a saga like the Lord of the Rings. It's a pity, especially since the game is full of bugs as it is.
Review in French | Read full review
The Lord of the Rings: Gollum fails to live up to both the Tolkien name and its own potential. From exhausting, repetitive gameplay to a poorly constructed narrative, this is a piece of Middle-earth you should never explore.
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.
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 has the features of a solid „middle of the road” game. Unfortunately, that’s not the case here. The game is tiring, and I really wish this Gollum had a chance to return – with all his dialog lines, sarcasm, and the Smeagol persona – in a different, much better game.
Review in Polish | Read full review
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.
If Lord of the Rings: Gollum were a short story or a low-budget film, it might be worth a look for Lord of the Rings fans. As a game, however, with over a dozen hours of gameplay, it is obviously a physically painful torment.
Review in Chinese | Read full review
Despite being presented as a lonely creature, Gollum gets more attention than he might deserve in The Lord of the Rings: Gollum. With average by-the-books platforming and stealth gameplay, there actually is a thoughtful and engaging story at the heart of Gollum. It's up to fans of the genre to decide whether time spent on ordinary gameplay is worth experiencing Gollum's history.