The Lord of the Rings: Gollum Reviews
The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is a confusing and unfocused experience. The game tries to be an adventure title with stealth mechanics but attempts to mix in a variety of other features that simply do not go together very well. This is a pity because Daedalic Entertainment tried, but failed to build a Gollum faithful to Tolkien's works, placing him in a narrative context that struggles to pick up pace, being really interesting only in the first few hours of play. Between a visual impact anchored to two generations ago and various technical issues, Nacon's ambitious video game is unfortunately a bitter disappointment that does not offer the proper value to the prestigious Lord of the Rings license.
Review in Italian | Read full review
The Lord of the Rings: Gollum unfortunately doesn't live up to the expectations placed in it and announced. It felt like a game that hadn't yet found its feet. The basics are in place, but you quickly get the feeling that you're doing the same thing over and over again, and moving forward without much interest. Yet the universe and the environment created around it allow you to immerse yourself in the world of J.R.R Tolkien. The technical problems, however, break this immersion, which fails to make up for the other problems. I wouldn't recommend Gollum in its current state, and I hope the developers manage to improve it. Otherwise, the title will be quickly forgotten by gamers.
Review in French | Read full review
Even though we are big Lord of the Rings fans, and we were afraid to start the game based on the preliminary negative feedback, it was a pleasant surprise. We enjoyed the story so much that I hope to play Gollum's Adventures again. If only to explore the different decisions and endings.
Review in Czech | Read full review
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.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
The Lord of the Rings: Gollum offers a bleak and lackluster adaptation of Middle-earth, with one of its more divisive characters in the spotlight. Whatever potential the game had is buried under dull, generic gameplay, a variety of technical issues, and low quality visuals.
The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is filled with dull stealth, bad platforming, and a pointless story, and does little to justify why anyone should take the time to play it.
Much like its title character, The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is compromised, inelegant, and a bit of an eyesore. To everyone except the most fervent of Tolkienites; you shall pass.
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.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
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 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
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.
The Lord of the Rings: Gollum could have ushered in a new era of The Lord of the Rings-based games. One that had the daring to fill in Tolkien’s gaps, but still showed respect for the source material. The Lord of the Rings: Gollum isn’t that game. While the story is compelling with a great performance from Smeagol/Gollum, the remainder of the game is a woeful mess. While Daedalic’s vision for Middle-earth is filled with artistic beauty, it’s altogether let down by a terrible technical presentation that’s far behind today’s standards. Ultimately, though, it’s the lack of polish and jankiness that is its undoing. From the myriad gameplay issues that bog down the simple mechanics to the mind-numbing crashes capable of hampering progression, there is little about The Lord of the Rings: Gollum that’s polished or enjoyable. 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.
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
Daedalic Entertainment boldly chooses a game that has no obvious reason to exist and make it their passion project, but weirdly forgets to design it in a way that justifies its existence. TLOR Gollum is sadly everything you would fear. Out of touch on every front and most importantly, It misses every one of the very little attempts it make to feel compelling.
Review in Arabic | Read full review
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.
The motive behind developing this game is a mystery. Visuals and gameplay are from two generations before, and the story is meaningless. Safe your precious time, and skip this one.
Review in Arabic | Read full review
Lord of the Rings: Gollum struggles under its own weight from the word go. Any benefit from a grimmer, more unvarnished look at the characters of Middle-earth from an atypical perspective is immediately undercut by a bevy of technical issues, clunky controls, unexciting game design, and stilted presentation at constant odds with the player.
It was always going to be tough to pull off a Gollum game, but there’s simply nothing precious about this amateur stealth adventure. A general lack of refinement lurks in every shadowy corner of LotR: Gollum, a game disappointingly barren of interesting ideas or substantial gameplay. Even the most loyal Lord of the Rings fans will struggle through it. If you value your time, do yourself a favour and avoid it like the Eye of Sauron.
The Lord of the Rings: Gollum had a rough start prior to launch but despite its followup patches, it’s still not a good game. It plays with some interesting concepts but they are so often overshadowed by its poor controls, loose movement, and overly slow story where everyone feels like a bit part except the titular lead. There is a certain charm that ever so often seeps through, to make it a partly enjoyable platforming and even stealth experience, but just as it builds any kind of momentum the game swiftly reminds you of its drawbacks and frustrations.