gollum lord of the rings unedited publicity photos

It dissects Gollum and why he remains an outsider despite any best efforts from himself or potential friends. As with Guardians, it’s set against some gorgeous backdrops, and while characters are often animated stiffly (especially in dialogue), the script held my attention well.

Whenever it’s not being a sneaky platformer, Gollum impressed me as a work of interactive Tolkien fanfic, not unlike 2021’s Guardians Of The Galaxy in its walk-and-talk formula punctuated by action. Thankfully, the narrative half carried Gollum for me. It works, but if this was all Gollum offers, I’d have probably given up. Control inputs are sometimes dropped, and while the stealth and platforming segments alike are generously checkpointed, you either follow the intended path or die. Gollum is far too filthy and emaciated to be a convincing Nathan Drake or Sam Fisher, and whether he successfully reaches for a ledge or plummets to his instant death sometimes feels random.

If you’re not blessed with Frodo’s luck, you might be better off waiting for a few rounds of patches.īoth halves of the action side are functional but a bit undercooked. I was apparently very lucky, with other players reporting significantly nastier issues, including frequent crashes and progression-breaking bugs forcing rolling back to earlier saves or worse.

While I encountered a great many little glitches when playing Gollum (this is an undeniably janky game), most were related to dropped inputs and Gollum refusing to grab onto ledges, leading to sudden deaths.

Gollum lord of the rings unedited publicity photos