Gollums Existence is Miserable so when you play the game you feel miserable too. You also feel like you were robbed of your “precious” 70 dollars and feel betrayed. All the choices are made deliberately from a Role playing perspective to make the player be able to identify and relate to gollum. They archived their Goal!

10/10 immersive experience. Made me want to throw myself into the fires of Mount Doom.

this is literally the morbius of video games

Playing as Gollum is a weird idea but one that could've been incredibly fucking good with a really tight, well written experience. The inverse is true as well, because it makes it that much worse when everything sucks lmao

This feels like one of those games that was in development hell for 10+ years and was rebooted every other week

It feels like a movie tie-in PS2 game that my mom randomly bought for me because she recognized the title.

It could have been something great. Imagine Smeagol's very slow descent into madness presented into a 10hour long game which basically is a case study of a key character to the Lotr trilogy. If it was that it could have been a perfect game, but it fails at even that premise.

The next game is going to be "Balrog." You wander around in a pitch-black cavern for about 2 hours, at which point you have to track down the muffled sound of pickaxes and Scottish accents, and as the first dwarf breaks through and a shaft of light engulfs the camera, the end credits play.

Can we all at least offer our thanks to all the orcs who worked tirelessly to paint all of the handholds yellow for Gollum.

Truly one of the best games of 2008

This is like playing as Dudley in a Harry Potter game and you have to hide from Death Eaters. Such a bizarre choice of playable character for this universe

The concept of being in a cursed/damned part of a wonderful world, playing as a character who's furtive, has dubious morals, strong self interests, a audible immersive representation of his two distinct personalities, is a concept with SO MUCH potential, being able to sneak around, trick people, chose between plans that fit each personality more, having such choices make real difference in gameplay and/or story, all while showing the beautiful creations of Tolkien... Yet they managed to get the worse of every step 🤡

I picture a Gollum game being some kind of survival horror considering who he is and what’s he’s been through.

This feels like a game that was meant to come out in 2002. I honestly feel like I’ve played a demo of this way back in the early 00s when demo discs were a thing

The most bewildering thing about this game is the fact the studio sent out reviews copies of it. They must've known the feedback would be devastating, so why do it?

"it looks like it was designed by highschoolers or college students as a summer project" that probably is partially true. i worked as an intern for daedalic a long time ago and... if they do things the same way as back then it means the game was probably done by interns almost exclusively. Back then there was at least thrice the amount of (unpaid) interns in comparison to employers. And if there are no experienced professionel employes the interns don't have anyone to learn from. So they just do it the best they can. And don't get me wrong: Daedalic did manage to attract some really talented and skilled artists as interns. But that talent does not matter in the lack of everything else. I'm sad for these people. They probably poured their hearts into this project and tried their very best.

"Imagine having an AI in your game that can create levels for you as you play" This, this is what that would look like

It really makes you *feel* like Gollum from The Lord of the Rings.

Pretty daring to make a game centred around the life of a character who sat in a cave for 5 centuries.

This really looks like one of those games your mother would get for you for cheap together with the console back in the ps2 era and that would then sit in your collection forever after you played it only once.

The developer, Daedalic, once was a pretty big name when it came to indie-ish point and click games here in germany. Very funny humor, not too big on animations, but kinda cute cartoon style of graphics. However, lately alot of people who worked there claimed that all the important people have left, only students are hired, people are overworked and nobody in the upper management knows what they are doing. The only positive thing former workers pointed out is that co-workers are friendly towards each other because they're all stuck in the same boat. So seeing how Gollum ended up, I'm sure it is how you said: Nobody in leading positions knew what they were doing. Hell, I almost wanna bet that a level designer actively put the rock there to hide the volcano out of spite, if the stories are true of how bad the dev has gotten. It is sad because they used to make really good games. Harvey's New Eyes is one of the best point and click games ever. But that game is over 10 years old now, and clearly nobody working on that is still with the developer.

If you bought the game, here's some cash so you can get the DLC too. You're welcome.

The bit where he says "its Golluming time!" is a pretty badass gaming moment though.

This game is the equivalent of making an A Song of Ice and Fire video game and the main character they choose for you to play as is Reek and the whole game you’re stuck in Winterfell cleaning Ramsay’s horse, doing his bidding and trying to remember your name by choosing three options and finding the one that rhymes with Reek.

Playing as Gollum sounds like something that'd be a good side mission in a LoTR game. You get to play as Gollum for a level or two and then go back to the main game. Why would you take that and make it the whole game?

It's gonna be interesting to learn how much of a hell this must've been to work on, especially for people on the dev team who are actual Lotr fans. That has gotta sting knowing you made your own fav franchise's worst video game in existence lol

It’s such a shame to see what happened to Daedalic Entertainment. Their point & click adventures are some of the greatest games I’ve ever played. So much love for detail, creative, funny and at times heart breaking.

I appreciate the lengths you went to to say: "People legitimately tried". As someone who has been in game dev for 20 years, I can tell everyone: Literally zero games out there are made 100% by people who don't care. Sure, some of the people on the team might not care, but there is always some who do, and they fight like hell against all odds to try recuing it, but most times- as in here, it's not possible. At the end of the day, it's a failed effort. But at least the acknowledgement of effort is refreshing when most people are like "WTF devs?!" This game will one of of those "what happened?" stories that will come out someday, and odds are high it was as you said: extreme mismanagement. It usually is.

Gollum as the main character had the potential to make a great stealth survival game, starting from the moment he sets foot into the caves under the Misty Mountains. Rangers and wizards have been done to death. However, this isn't that game. Why do devs/publishers almost always manage to screw up such a great license?

Elrond: cast it into the fire, destroy it! Gollum game publisher: NO Elrond: evil was allow to endure.

You could’ve had the start of the game when you are a hobbit, and consequently have you to accidentally find the ring then kill your friend. And then it’s like his spiraling into madness and you go through all the key moments In the series

I think what could have made this game work is having him go through cool environments and just watching things unfold, Gollum is always there watching a greater story in middle earth happen before his eyes. A 5 hour quick story but entertaining and for $40

Gollum 70$ Elden ring 60$ Welcome to this industry everyone

And now we can all collectively shake our heads in shame as everyone saw this coming.

If anyone has seen that one prank from Impractical Jokers where Joey and Q show off fake game concepts like “Superman: The Clark Kent Stuff” or “Murder Your Family” to the focus group, this game fits in perfectly.

Still a better love story than Rings of Power.

The worst trolls in this game are the devs for thinking people will pay money for this

The original Lord of the Rings games on ps2 and Xbox, I thought were badass and they still are to this day. The Return of the King was awesome because of the cooperative play. What was really cool was they would show cut scenes from the movies and then you would go straight into the game. The combat was fluid and solid for its time

I have no doubt a good studio could have made an incredible Gollum game. I think the premise is ripe with opportunities. They could have went completely offbeat, and did some sort of survival action/horror game. Something more base camp focused where you are in the mountain. They could have executed well on stealth too if they leaned more into it. Done passive stealth or active stealth. Something akin to Alien Isolation or Styx. It was very possible to do something cool.

It's so dark... Like I get he's a miserable character so the environment's gotta be more dreary but damn it's like traveling in gollum's ass

There are so many games being released for the price of a full AAA game that really should be 20 bucks. There’s a market for mid titles they just refuse to price them as what they are…

This really looks like one of those weird movie tie in games from the mid 2000’s

this game feels like an out of season april fools joke

Gollum’s not a weird character to pick at all, he’s a very interesting character. Exploring his mental state and the beginnings of the personality split would be fascinating! And people love playing as little gremlins! …and then they made this, so.

What really got me was the price tag. From the trailers it looked like a really good LOTR next gen tech demo walking lore simulator I’d easily pay $20 to $30 for. Hearing it doesn’t even achieve that and is going for $60+ is wild.

I'd be interested in listening to a postmortem on this game to learn how it was bungled so badly. I can't help but feel bad for the hard working developers who poured years of their lives into a project that was this badly mismanaged. And it's a shame, I thought the concept itself was really intriguing and unique.

I always finding it amazing that the gaming industry allows products like this or the first cyberpunk release etc to see the light of day! If this were any other industry, the product would never leave the shop floor, and if it did, there would be absolute carnage in within the consumer base.

I still can't fathom the decision they made to design Gollum to be "likeable" while at the same time making it look like an Oblivion non descript goblin.

I am so mad that untalented people get budgets to make such awful games while some brilliant indie devs have to work with scrap...

This feels like the sort of weirdly specific licensed game that they stopped making in 2011.

I absolutely love how literally nobody was excited for this game (well I saw exactly 2 people on Reddit that were but that's about it) and we all knew well in advance that it would be terrible and yet it STILL managed to be worse than we all expected. Now that takes some talent.

They also locked two key features of the game behind pay walls: Elves that Speak Sindarin and a FUCKING LORE/DATABASE.

this game feels like if they let Gollum direct a videogame

That's like making a Simpsons game where you play as Hans Moleman

This game should've been a Survival game where you only are required to kill in a VERY stealthy way. Orcs can see better than humans in the dark, so getting discovered should trigger a sequence to escape and hide. For that you need an expansive level design, with caves, crooks and nooks to slip into. Gollum was supposed to be a rumor to orcs. Not a common occurrence or someone they had chats with.

Honestly, I couldn't think of a character I'd want to play as less than Gollum

I had a sneaky feeling that this would be a bad game

I don't think Gollum/Smeagol as main character is a bad idea. he is actually a really interesting twisted mind character it doesn't need all the time to be beautiful elf or warriors. The only bad thing is how much potential there wasted with this character, there could play more with the downfall of Smeagol slowly turning into gollum losing humanity but gaining new ability's.

They did not choose the main character to be Gollum. They just googled an image of an average gamer and made the character based on that 😆

I, uh, didn't know this game existed and I wish I never found out

I think the idea of playing as Gollum could be interesting, to play as someone passive to the whole war of good and evil and just being a spectator. The problem with that is that Gollum literally has nothing to do, he's in his cave with his ring until Bilbo shows up and then idk he does nothing until Froddo shows up. His whole point of being is the ring, he wouldn't even go anywhere if he already has it

Seeing this review pains me. Because it is true. I'm from Germany and Deadelic has designed some of the most beautiful, funny and touching point and click adventures, like edna bricht aus, harveys neue Augen and Deponia, which shaped my youth. And it hurts to see how badly they miscalculated with this game. Especially because it was supposed to be their leap into the big games.

Literally, all this game needed to be was Styx: Shards of Darkness with a Lord of the Rings coat of paint. It wouldn't have been anything that set the world on fire, but it would've been solid and underrated.

man, it hurts seeing this being made by daedelic. they are the guys who made the deponia point and click adventures. they are a beloved game dev studio in germany.

it’s actually pretty impressive that they found the one guy who apparently can’t do a decent gollum impression

I'm so upset. I was legit really looking forward to the idea behind this game. Gollum vs Smeagol ideas and split personalities and multiple endings seemed amazing. Gollum was always my favorite character and I was excited he was going to be the star... then this happened.... smh

From the very beginning, when I heard that Gollum would get a new game, I had my doubts. Either the developers got a really good idea, or they didn't...and it was the latter. It takes skills to make a game out of a character that is quite strange to begin with, at least t o fill the gaming experience for dozens of hours. But the studio doesn't even know the visual side, how they would build the attractive world of Lord of the Rings.

From the trailers I saw, this has to be the most predictable end result I’ve ever seen😭 who thought this was a good idea?!

God could you imagine the devs anxiety prior to launch day, how this could get put out just goes to show the publisher doesn't take it's consumers seriously

I reckon the thing with the wheel getting out of whack was supposed to be a timed challenge that was too janky or didn't make sense in context.

Looks like a game you get for free in a corn flakes box 😂

I don't know, it doesn't feel like a weird concept to me. The execution can fail at what it wants to achieve, sure, but Gollum's psyche is this weird, intentionally unrealistic ode to addiction, general monomania and the basest expression of greed imaginable. And, well - we've seen Elves. We know they represent the best parts of us. We've seen Dwarves. We know they're something of a fleshed-out commentary on our own stubbornness. We've seen the Men of Middle-Earth act like, well, normal humans who you'd expect to be conflicted and emotionally tortured in times of war, and we've seen them take charge like we know the best of can when the chips fall in the right places. We've certainly seen the Orcs get the same treatment, too - and not just across Tolkien's legendarium. All of that, and we somehow can't explore what happens when you abandon your dreams, your hopes, all sense of nobility or basic self-reespect for the sake of some irrational need? I mean, I get it, we're all gamers and we're all here for your average power fantasy, but you'd figure that after games like Outlast or even asymmetrical multiplayer games like Dead By Daylight, we'd have some patience for the concept of exploring a fantasy of weakness, of outright madness. Honestly, if Daedalic had polished this up a bit more, I'd have been interested. There's a baker's dozen other titles that could give me my "Boilerplate Fantasy Medieval Good Guy with a Sword" Fix, anyway.

Cheers Luke, I remember once upon a time when you were just my “video game critique” guy - now you’ve become my go to for new game releases to determine whether it’s worth forking out my dollars for a particular game. Really appreciate your work and efforts, particularly where you play games on a regular build pc like I have to help me make a better informed decision. Been a long time fan of the channel since back when you had that lizard hahaha, thanks again bro

This game was delayed 2 times for a year. A year delay! TWICE!! Can you imagine what it looked like at its original release date??

Holy hell. I thought this was going to be a nostalgic episode and I was surprised I never heard of this game back in my early 2000s gaming days .... To learn it came out THIS YEAR bowled me

You know, I really appreciate that you don't bury the lede or post in a way that feels like clickbait. Your titles basically include your conclusion, and your intro explains how you feel. I'm not sitting here going, "Ok but how is it?" for half the video. Thank you for your integrity and quality.

Game Gollum: having a full on moral dilemma war in the soul wrestle with conscience over eating a beetle. Meanwhile canon Gollum watching, casually chowing down on some tasty infants he picked up from the local nursery

That's too bad. I had high hopes and realistic expectations of this one. I was picturing being Gollum exploring an open world and seeing all the places mentioned in the literature and some of the events trying to get clues to find the Shire and Baggins. Making a game with Gollum is tough, that was the biggest mistake 😂. There's some stories to tell with him but he doesn't really do anything but sneak around and eavesdrop. He avoided everything since losing the Ring. You could have him happen to witness a battle or event that is only mentioned in conversation in LOTR to make it more interesting. It could potentially make a decent movie but there isn't enough to do for a game.

They should have made this a game of engaging puzzles, robust combat, exploration and traversal (which it does to an extent), with great dungeons, imposing castles, lush forests and snow capped mountains, with impressive NPCs, and some back story showing us how Gollum came to be where and who he was (for those new to the lore). A kind of Hogwarts Legacy meets WoW. Instead, we got Gollum in a toupee collecting underpants with skid marks in them.

I really like the concept of this game! (Surprising even myself...). It all makes perfect sense to me, each part - as long as I only hear about it. Then I take a look at the screen, catch a glance of Gollum's facial animation and in that instant I am sure: we live in a cold, dead, uncaring universe, and our existence is a morbid, purposeless thrashing of flesh, fearing and longing for a release.

Honestly, a documentary or an Internet Historian video about what happened behind the scenes would be so interesting.

The idea of a Gollum game would actually bang if it was done correctly

So this gets approved but we can't get another Shadow of Mordor game? 🙄

I will never blame the devs Its the people at the top. The devs are doing what they are being told to do in the time they are given no one wants a game to bomb but this sucks and you gotta call em as they are.

I watched somebody play a game and like EVERY CHOICE was mapped to the same button when you had to choose different choices to make “Do I want to press A? Or A? Or perhaps A?….I think I’ll go with A”

Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy released in 2003 from THQ on the PS2 and original Xbox, and it has more fluid animations for character models than like 20% of video games made these days.

I would have preferred a game playing as the Witch-King or Khamul the Easterling. Not sure what possessed the devs to choose Gollum of all characters.

Truly a AAA game worth it's 50-60 bucks

When we got the first trailer I said "imagine going from dominating armies of orcs and Uruk, Caragors and Gruags and the next LoTR game you play as Gollum. Seems very underwhelming" I got dogpiled and now the final release was exactly that. Underwhelming. The devs even had an apology up and ready like it's been collecting dust on their desktop ready for the inevitable.

This feels like one of those mini games you sometimes get to play whilst the real game is still downloading e.g. the hoth level in battlefront

Luke you do realise the publishers of this game will use your dialogue @18:58 to 19:01 and 19:04 to 19:07 and splice it together for there positive review "its amazing its amazing, i have no words this game has taken my breath away".....thanks for vid

If you look at the publisher and some of the games the developers have made in the past, you will see they have put out mostly no-name indie titles in years past; so this project seems particulary ambitious and high-profile for them based on their previous works. The problem is that they don't seem particularly talented - which might explain why the premise and execution seems so incredibly off as well as why this thing was even green-lit to begin with...

I really have to disagree with the idea that Gollum would be a bad protagonist in a video game. However, it would indeed require some really, really good and talented writers in order to make the story interesting (especially if it's a full-fledged full-priced triple-A title). But I really believe that in the hands of good writers and good developers, Gollum would make a really good game protagonist. It would potentially make for a relatively different game (perhaps one of those more "artsy" games maybe.)

What is with games’ obsession with putting LOTR games in Mordor? It’s literally, *by design*, the ugliest and dullest location in Middle Earth. Why not Rivendell, Lorien, Moria, Minas Tirith or hell even the Shire? Put some damn color in these games.

I remember people hating war in the north but compare to this that game is next level quality

10:52 delayed for two years and still panned out this way. If it’s been in a development hell that would explain a lot.

I really like the idea of this game because frankly I love this freaky little gremlin and playing him crawling and jumping though caves sounds a lot more fun to me than playing through endless battles....but I have to imagine that I'm very much in the minority on that. Like, this is such a niche concept. It kinda feels like an indi project. Like something made for a very small and specific demographic that adore this character and sold at like 10 quid tops. But mainstream gaming? For £40?

Very good Review. And i also agree on the fact, the devs actually did care, but they were too unexperienced to achieve the level and standard of the game they set up for. It sure has a lot of potential but lacked experience and was released at least 1 year too early. The heart was in the right place, but the game just never got finished with the graphics, design and testing it deserved.

How can a game like it even start above 10+ dollar

I love those type of broken games, because you KNOW there're some juicy behind the scene stories to explain this mess.