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LORD OF THE RINGS: GOLLUM charms despite a fractured identity

- Dominic Tarason

Despite my nature (a sun-averse hermit hoarding treasures) giving me a certain affinity for Gollum, I’ve been a bit sceptical about Daedalic’s much-delayed Lord of the Rings game, as early footage left me uninspired and unsure whether there was even a coherent game here. The good news is that Gollum does have some interesting ideas. Unfortunately, its ideas fall into two distinct camps, and one is nicer than the other.

Mechanically, Gollum is a cinematic but basic stealth platformer, aspiring to Uncharted's wall-clambering or Splinter Cell's creeping, but awkward at both, in-character and out. On the platforming front, there's usually a single route through each area, involving some mixture of highlighted grabbable ledges, ropes, vines and bars to swing from. The environments are often gorgeous and very vertical, providing a fun excuse to make death-defying leaps. Still, Gollum is fragile and longer drops kill him instantly, ragdolling spectacularly before snapping back to the last checkpoint.