The Lord of the Rings It undoubtedly stands as one of the most relevant and long-lived literary works of all time, capable of enthusing millions of people over the last seventy years and lending itself very easily to transmedia operations that have seen Tolkien's epic also reach the world of cinema. video games, although with mixed success.
In this case we are faced with a particularly ambitious project for a small development team like Daedalic Entertainment: a dynamic adventure starring none other than Gollum, one of the most controversial figures in J.R.R.'s novels. Tolkien, whose fate is tied to that of the One Ring: his great, great treasure.
The final result of the long efforts of the German studio, which planned to publish the game in 2021 and then postpone its release several times, nevertheless leaves us speechless: we explain why in the Review of The Lord of the Rings: Gollum.
History and narrative sector
Let's start by saying that The narrative assumptions of the project are interesting. and they aim to expand and enrich the already unlimited knowledge of The Lord of the Rings, telling what happened over the years between the events of The Hobbit and the birth of the Fellowship of the Ring, that is, the period in which which Gollum was a prisoner in the fortress of Barad-dur.
Daedalic Entertainment, however, did not dare to write the history of the game without first consulting various experts in Tolkien's work, to give us an adventure as close as possible to the books, which takes place over ten chapters with a duration of about twelve hours if you progress relatively calmly.
There is no doubt that Gollum's surrender is valid: played in this case by Wayne Forester and not by his original cinematic voice, Andy Serkis, the protagonist of the adventure expresses his dualism very clearly in the dialogues and the change of personality leaves one speechless, proving to be a great work that, However, it is not enough to raise the level of the story.
Severely limited for almost half of its useful life by poorly written sequences, in which the action of the game is so schematic that it is reminiscent of the cinematics of the 90s, with the big difference that in this case it was not necessary to adapt the mechanics to a story written from scratch, the narrative in particular seems to lack of a direction capable of better highlighting its atmospheres and its strengths.
Gameplay: Derivative at best
Il game from The Lord of the Rings: Gollum therefore seems to follow the plot, and not the other way around: a big mistake, which in the first four chapters of the campaign forces you to deal with very boring sequences of collecting and activating switches and then return to your cell to rest, meeting other prisoners in the fortress but without these implications producing anything concrete.
Then we finally get a glimpse of something, in this case highly derived platform sections, clearly inspired by Uncharted 4: A Thief's End, in which you jump from handhold to handhold in an attempt to find an escape route, with exaggerated tolerances on the hooks, really bad animations (see the jump from one bar to another ) but also a lot of slipperiness and camera craziness that produces frustrating and undeserved endings to the game.
These sequences sometimes leave room for quite basic moments of secrecy, in which Gollum must hide from the guards' sight, possibly using stones to distract them: a bit like A Plague Tale: Innocence, but with substantially worse execution. There are also short minigames in which the protagonist's split personality triggers a confrontation that we will have to try to win, selecting the most convincing elements from a contextual menu.
The moments of internal conflict between Gollum and Sméagol, but also the simple crossovers in which we are asked to act following one personality or another, actually trigger events that change the course of the story, although limited to elements and characters. enough to impact the gameplay that finally appears outdated and uncertain in its mechanics.
Technical implementation: two generations.
It's clear that bringing the world of The Lord of the Rings to the screen requires some kind of work, especially in terms of adjustments, to recreate in the most effective way possible the scenarios described so thoroughly by Tolkien and brought to film by the saga directed by Peter Jackson, which inevitably remains a point of reference in this situation.
Unfortunately, the technical implementation is another sore point for The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, which after a long development and several postponements is presented with a Graphics that are basically two generations old. in terms of geometry, animations and effects, in addition to being marred by such a number of oversights and failures that they call into question the integrity of the project.
From this point of view, adding ray tracing It seems more like a publicity stunt than anything else, a useless decoration that ends up weighing down even more what is certainly no longer presented as an example of optimization; on the contrary, it moves with an inexplicable effort considering the geometries and technologies in the field. . And DLSS 3 compatibility is no excuse.
So forget about suggestive scenarios or perhaps an alternative but compelling style: Daedalic's title is lacking personality, crude, problematic and careless, and beyond a fair and discreet understanding of the protagonist there is very little that can be saved. The aforementioned performance by Wayne Forester, without a doubt, and a nice soundtrack, but the positive notes practically end there.
Additionally, the PC version, which was provided to us for review, suffers as mentioned. huge optimization problems: In the test settings we were able to run it at 1440p and 60 fps, with all settings at maximum and ray tracing, just putting the DLSS on "balanced": a weight completely similar to the much criticized one we talked about in the review of The Last of Us Part 1, but with a markedly different visual representation.
PC system requirements
Test setup
- Processor: Intel Core i5 13500
- Video card: NVIDIA RTX 4070
- Memory: 32GB RAM
- Operating system: Windows 11
Minimum requirements
- Procesador: Intel Core i5 4690, AMD Ryzen 3 1300X
- Video scheme: NVIDIA GTX 1060, AMD R9 290X
- Memory: 8GB RAM
- Storage: 45 GB of space required
- Operating system: Windows 10, Windows 11, 64 bits
Recommended requirements
- Procesador: Intel Core i7 8700K, AMD Ryzen 5 3600X
- Video card: NVIDIA RTX 3070, AMD RX 6750 XT
- Memory: 16GB RAM
- Storage: 45 GB of space required
- Operating system: Windows 10, Windows 11, 64 bits
Conclusions
Tested version PC with Windows digital delivery Steam, playstation store, Xbox Store, Nintendo eShop Price 49,99 € / 59,99 € Holygamerz.com 5.0 Readers (36) 6.1 your voteThere's no point in beating around the bush, The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is a huge disappointment. Despite starting from interesting narrative assumptions, Daedalic Entertainment's adventure seems extremely outdated in all aspects and its best moments are the least original, demonstrating how the entire system was created under the sign of an incomplete, inconclusive and confusing story, which does not redeem either. On a technical level and on PC in particular, it offers a truly sad spectacle.
PRO
- Gollum very well performed, excellent soundtrack.
AGAINST
- Inconclusive, derivative gameplay at its best.
- Technically very dated, and on PC it's a rock
- Potentially interesting but underrated story.
