The Lord of the Rings: Gollum Review

ign.com:

Whether it’s a book, a movie, or a video game, creative works generally exist for a reason. Sometimes it’s to delight, by entertaining with stories or fun gameplay. Other times it’s to inform, with news or by exposing the audience to different perspectives. Or it makes you think, with interesting ideas that challenge you to consider or reflect. The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, however, is a game that does none of these things. Instead, it thrusts you into the role of the titular character without doing anything meaningful with his defining internal conflict, and sends him on a series of missions that are neither fun to play nor interesting to experience. The one question it poses is: why would someone want to play this?

Playing as Gollum sounded like it might’ve been a decent pitch for a game, since he’s one of the more interesting and famous characters in J. R. R. Tolkien’s fantasy universe. He and Sméagol are two sides of the same coin; the good person that was Sméagol was tragically corrupted by The One Ring, twisted into this pathetic creature. It’s his clammy bare feet that we step into, ostensibly with the goal of regaining possession of the Ring from Bilbo Baggins. However, most of your time is spent experiencing Gollum’s time as a prisoner during the years between The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ringin a linear, story-driven series of levels. Prison Simulator: Mordor Edition is sadly less interesting than it sounds. I couldn’t shake the feeling I was supposed to be on a grand Lord of the Rings adventure, and was instead stuck collecting bits and baubles for forgettable NPCs and hiding in bushes to hide from monotonous guard patrols.

There are generally three phases to any level, and they range from uninteresting