Reviewer’s Note: All of my experience is based on Version 2.2 of the game.

Of all the characters within Tolkien's rich universe, why make the emaciated crackhead the lead in your side story?  Maybe I sound too facetious, but I still genuinely frame it that way because it's intriguing to think over.  And I believe Daedalic Entertainment, most known for modest point-n-click adventures, had an earnest reply: exploring one of The Lord of the Rings' (LotR) most tragic and pathetic characters through an action-adventure could reveal something more about him.  It’s not my first choice if given the money, but there's something so conceptually brazen about it.  The problem is anyone’s more prone to strike out if exclusively aiming for the fences.

LotR has essentially found its own Rogue One: a breadcrumb of background context critical to the main story given a separate narrative.  In the books and Peter Jackson's film adaptations, Sméagol's/Gollum's introduction was essentially being caught by Sauron, brutally tortured, and divulging a lead for Sauron's cohorts to hunt for The One Ring, before being brushed aside for his inevitable escape.  Rather than a simple description, here Sméagol regales Gandalf of his imprisonment in the Black Pits of Barad-dûr while... stuck in a different prison cell.  But before that, we have to get through an introductory tutorial where Gollum obsessively chases a beetle, which leads to his capture.

So now a terse footnote transitions into a decent premise that's woefully undercooked.  Gollum's natural drive for freedom essentially means obeying the spit-wetted yells of Xeroxed Orcs for hours within samey mine shafts.  Hearing the recited praises to Sauron from the same cult and doing menial work, like herding boroks or collecting identity cards from fatally-exhausted slaves, wouldn't seem so bad if Daedalic had a better sense of pacing and meaningful context.  Instead, it's just going through the doldrums and slowly building an escape plan with the dual Sméagol/Gollum personalities yammering back and forth about "Precious" and "nasty, filthy Orcses."  

Years quickly pass for him in the Black Pits as he ascends to dignified slave status after gaining the interest of its leader: The Candle Man.  During this meager rise, a few spare instances occur where Gollum's internal, bipolar conflict bubbles to the surface with dialogue choices.  Should you tip towards Sméagol's or Gollum's appeals in ratting out a potential co-conspirator?  Whichever side you select still requires the other to assent after winning a word-game match (best out of 3 or 5).  It's trying to incorporate mechanics with their internal fight in The Two Towers, but failing far short of the movie's impact.  For gameplay, it's so simplistic to win depending on which side you choose, and ineffectual to the narrative anyways; presentationally, it doesn't nearly measure up to the film's tragedy, comedy, nor panache, made worse by lacking Andy Serkis as well (no disrespect towards Wayne Forester).  It's a checklist item.

When the arguments subside, a more typical grab bag of "action-adventure" tropes take up the majority of time.  Who would've expected Mordor's best architects loved conveniently-painted ledges and wooden platforms?  Beyond those, the expectations of climbing lush vines, spinning around gymnast beams, and crawling through cramped spaces are blended in for good measure.  As much as I extend an olive branch to some decent level design, wobbly and inconsistent mechanics distract from the scenery too often.  What begin as nettlesome misreads of Gollum's momentum from his stupid frog-like jump grow to become infuriating when the game disregards what should've been successful grapples, wall-runs, and so on.  Generous checkpoints partially ameliorate such lacking polish, less so for its egregious set-piece portions.

The second-most popular facet would be stealth.  Again, I would like to give due credit for the scant positives; for instance, I appreciate the visual touch of Gollum turning black with white reflective eyes when undetected in tall grass – emulating his brief appearance from the shadows in Fellowship.  It's a shame there's little more since his uniquely diminutive stature could've pursued a stronger simulative stealth emphasis against the dexterity and power of modern stealth-action protagonists.  Gollum would rather stick to boring strictures like tailing missions or slinking past guards with the most capricious sound detection system in recent memory.  Everything is the barest of basics: line of sight detection for Gollum (apparently not for killed friendlies), throwing rocks at big iron cans, hiding in tall grass, and potentially choking the few Orcs without a helmet.  It's just another gameplay clump of artificial obstacles.

While these critiques remain throughout, things take a turn for the… somewhat better once Sméagol is shackled in Elven country.  The flashback story is finished, the lusher locale earns more of your attention, and the mission structure feels more rewarding.  With another prisoner named Mell, a blind Elf clinging to hope of her love being alive, you actually feel compelled to move forward.  There's a gradual and earnest build-up between her and Gollum as they try to escape incarceration, plus Jessica Ellerby is the one voice actor that nailed her role.  Silly notions like clear goals and two serviceable environmental puzzles come into view, imploring you to actually engage with the wider world.  The feculent gameplay basics don't go away, but it shows a few glimmers of Daedalic's better inventions. 

When weighing these with other one-off scenarios, Gollum can be categorized as the ugly confection you'd expect from a developer not well-versed with the genre and biting off more than it can chew.  Removing the one-dimensional stealth and wonky platforming, it's also replete with artificially slow walky-talky moments and other time-wasting crimes.  A part of me understands temporarily possessing the camera to flex the expansiveness of certain levels – drinking in the LotR universe, but it's better to give me control instead of choreographing exactly where I need to go in a cut scene.  Aside from a few collectible secrets, there's no genuine enthusiasm for exploration and self-discovery.

Unfortunately, that's Gollum at its most formal; at its nastiest, the plethora of flagrant technical problems make it nigh impossible to complete.  That's actually my story: I didn't finish this campaign.  To be clear, it's not like I can't shoulder copious bugs and more.  Chapters 1-8 are still a tornado of annoying platforming bugs, inconsistent framerate (even on Performance Mode), random visual errors, and the rare crash.  An unpleasant experience, but I want to be careful not to over-exaggerate compared to Chapters 9 & 10.
 
So, could I finish Gollum?  Technically maybe, but essentially no.  To start with Chapter 9, problems become pronounced after the golden path requires you to figure out a puzzle.  Doing a certain action permanently locked me in place, never allowing me to finish.  So, I find a workaround and move to the next sub-chapter.  Here is where the game gets worse at freezing up. Even certain quick actions threaten a hard-crash to the Xbox menu; on top of that, I’m having trouble loading to my last checkpoint.  So, now the issue is replaying the entire chapter over and over again in hopes it won't freeze this time.  This is egregiously exacerbated in the final chapter where the very notion of restarting whole cloth isn't guaranteed to work.  I constantly had to employ other tricks, like replaying older chapters so as to refresh the game (which only had a rare success rate).  But since any little thing – retrying a checkpoint after dying, landing funny on a platform, and more – can trip it into crashing again, at that point I questioned if it were worth grinding out.  After losing progress nearly a dozen times and over 40 hard crashes while trying to reload a current save or sub-chapter, I'd finally hit my limit.  I lost all patience to keep trying.

These glaring flaws wouldn't be quite as flagrant for a modest indie game; oddly enough, I reviewed Daedalic's Night of the Rabbit back then, which also had progress-halting bugs towards its finale.  Unlike rooting for that flawed gem to be hastily fixed, I can't help but excoriate this one more as it's a big-budget game with a few DLC warts on top of the $70 "Precious Edition" (the version PR gave me too).  It's one thing to bundle a digital version of its pedestrian soundtrack behind DLC, but something more loathsome to lock lore-accurate Sindarin voiceovers.

Stripped of its worst technical flaws, The Lord of the Rings: Gollum would merely rank as a bad game, but in a saddened tone since it's a case of fumbled aspirations instead of laziness.  Given the inherently weird gremlin in the starring role, I could see it courting a niche audience as a meme-game too.  But with said technical issues?  I earnestly compare this to a Cyberpunk 2077 situation (at least on Xbox): it should be removed from physical & digital shelves until it can be finished without resorting to banging your skull against sheetrock.  That patch may actually come sooner rather than later, but I can't disregard all of my lost time.  One does not simply get away with an apology letter.

Contractor by trade and writer by hobby, Lee's obnoxious criticisms have found a way to be featured across several gaming sites: N4G, VGChartz, Gaming Nexus, DarkStation, and TechRaptor! He started gaming in the mid-90s and has had the privilege in playing many games across a plethora of platforms. Reader warning: each click given to his articles only helps to inflate his Texas-sized ego. Proceed with caution.