izigame.me

“We’re not in decent places.”
~Gollum

There are two kinds of bad games. The first one makes you scream, get yourself a physical copy of it, burn the physical copy of it, defecate on the remains and then either call for psychiatric help or get dead drunk. The second kind, on the other hand, simply makes you “OK, this isn't good. Whatever.” And when it's about this game? I totally expected the worst. Admit it, at this point? Everybody knows that this game's bad. I know it, you know, everybody knows that. If you don't, you should cancel your Vault-Tec subscription and rent yourself a proper apartment. The one with the Internet connection and, you know. Neighbors? About a year ago, everybody was talking 'bout how bad this game is. Press hated it, the actual audience hated it, my bloody cat hated it (which is funny, since I don't even have one)... This... game... is... bad. It's a scientific fact. And when something bad goes that viral? It's only natural to expect it to be of the first kind. Surprisingly? It's of the second one.
What this game wants to be is Styx. That stealth-oriented game from Cyanide that followed Of Orcs And Men game and told us a story of sharp-tongued goblin, after whom the whole thing was called. Personally? I don't mind. Sure, lots of people complained about Styx being kinda rough and I can't argue with that, but personally, I always thought that stealth games should be a bit rough. Maybe not the original Hitman rough, but the first Splinter Cell rough. Make a stealth game too smooth and it won't feel right IMO. The whole genre to me revolves around “Aw-w-w, crap!” moment. Use the quick save, die, swear for a bit, reload, try again. As long as the game is addictive enough and gives you enough motivation? Like I said, that's how I like my stealth. Styx? Was exactly that. And when it's about Gollum? That sneaky bastard from J.R.R. Tolkien's works? Say whatever you want, it was logical to use him for something like that. Think 'bout it. He's always in shadows, sneaking, plotting, while there's also that part about him being caught and tortured by Sauron. There's a whole adventure for us to experience there, right? On paper, this game makes lots of sense. Yet, as we all know, it sucks. Why? Let's make a list.
The story is poor, the visuals are bad, gameplay feels clunky, which leads to tons of cheap deaths... What? Nothing shocking? Yep. I mean, sure, if you'll expect proper AAA experience, you will get shocked by lack of both quality and polishing. But honestly, there's a whole niche of people making living by developing this kind of stuff. Of Orcs And Men, for example, was one of such games (published by Nacon too). Spiders, who co-created Of Orcs And Men with Cyanide, creators of Styx, are still making those. Made quite a lot of 'em too. From Mars: War Logs to Steelrising, you must have seen at least one of 'em. And there are many others. Mad Max game was like that, Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Earthblood was like that, Cobra Kai games were like that... Clunky cheap-ass games are a thing. So no, I don't get it why everybody's so angry about Gollum specifically.
Story's bad? Yeah. But when did such projects had good ones? The game looks like something from PlayStation 3 era? Sure. But I've actually seen worse within the niche. Gameplay's clunky even by PS3 standards and feels more like something from PS2? Yep. While often forcing you to make jumps over the pits and not letting you save where you want (huge mistake for a game that involves stealth), devs didn't make ol' man Sméagol “sticky” enough, which'll make you fall to your doom even when it'll look like you've made it. Does that make game to feel irritating? It does, yeah. Playing Gollum feels like picking up some little-known PS2 game on flea market and then realizing why nobody talks 'bout it. Ever played Frank Herbert's Dune? Not 1992 game from Cryo, not Westwood's Dune 2 and not any of those games you can find in Steam now. Frank Herbert's Dune. Based on John Harrison's mini-series. No? Didn't even hear about it? I wonder why...
To be honest, though, Gollum isn't that bad. Unlike Frank Herbert's Dune, it's at least somewhat playable. Cheap, clunky, annoying, but still playable. There are even collectibles and choices that... matter? Kinda? Again, adding choices was a pretty smart move. Gollum's dual personality became one of his most notable traits after the Peter Jackson's movie trilogy and letting us choose between his evil (Gollum) and “good” (Sméagol) self was only logical. Choices will even make impact on story, yet... it's so boring that it's hard to care. And that's, in my opinion, the biggest problem with this game. While being very poorly made and not having even the most basic “quality of life” mechanics (stealth, for example, feels terrible exactly because of that), it doesn't provide us with anything special. With something to make you care. With “this game sucks, but...” material. An interesting story that expands the lore, a unique gameplay feature (even Crysknife from Frank Herbert's Dune is more interesting than anything we have here), something. Unfortunately, the most advanced thing we've got is stones. Which we can... throw. Joy.
And to make things even worse? Publisher decided to milk the heck out of this game. I mean... Devs didn't even have time to finish the game! On release, this game was a broken disaster. Crashes every couple of minutes, corrupted savegames, you name it. Even at the moment I write this review about a year later, technical issues are still a thing. In my case, there was one game-breaking crash at the end of the fourth chapter (still not sure what fixed it – changing the graphics settings to minimum or disabling all DLC in Steam client), some parts of the levels didn't load properly (on one maps, for example, there was a hole in the ground (sneaky hobbitses...) and enemies just willingly killed themselves by walking into it), etc. In other words, while being somewhat playable now, this game is still far from feeling finished. Yet, there's DLC. And it feels ridiculous. I mean, the fact that it exists alone is ridiculous, but when you actually look at it? Good gosh! By paying more you'll get the following. First – the unlockable lore. Like... what? Imagine the Assassin's Creed games asking you to pay for their “encyclopedias”. Ubisoft are greedy as heck, but this? Wow. Just wow. Second – Sindarin voiceover for elves. Which... only works for the dialogues that don't really matter. The main thing will still be in English (or German if you're playing the German version) and only those NPCs that talk somewhere on background will benefit from the DLC. Third – the emotes. Wait, what? Emotes? Does this game have co-op? Um... no? I mean, seriously. There's no multiplayer here. Of any kind. Yet you can buy some emotes. To enjoy alone. What the f*ck is going on here, my precious?! Finally, there's so-called “art exhibition”. That even runs through its own executable. Sounds cool, right? Maybe it's one of those “interactive exhibitions” that were popular at some point of time? Nope. It's exactly what we used to have in the unlockable artwork section of main menu back in the days. They just made it a separate thing and asked money for it.
So. Do you need Gollum in your life? Hell, no! But does it deserve all the drama? Not really. It's yet another one of those games. And it's not like bad games based on books, comics and movies are something new. Dixi.