One of the best things about video games is how they allow us to inhabit another world, another life. They let us walk in another person’s shoes and experience existence from a new perspective. On paper, stepping into Middle-earth should be thrilling, but Lord of the Rings: Gollum has it all wrong.
Ask anyone about which character they’d like to play as in a Lord of the Rings game and most of them would likely give you a different answer. Out of those answers, I’d bet none of them would be, ‘I want to play as that malnourished goblin fella who eats rotten fish and talks to himself. You know, that slimy git who’s named after the sound of a cough.’ No.
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You can tell a lot about a character from what they carry around. Lightsabers will always be associated with Jedi. When we think about Master Chief, we imagine him holding an iconic assault rifle. Lara Croft might have been in an entirely new trilogy, but she’s a dual pistol wielder in our collective conscience. Then there are items that humanize characters and deepen our connections with them, like Joel’s broken watch in The Last of Us.
According to The Hobbit, Sméagol (that’s Gollum before people started calling him a cough) has deep pockets and always carries a tooth sharpening rock, goblin teeth, wet shells, and a scrap of bat wing. Wet shells and a scrap of bat wing! My god. He’s like a low-level mob you kill in an RPG so you can craft some lockpicks out of his bones.
Let’s talk about the gameplay for a minute. Gollum is all about cunning and guile. He stalks people and fights only when he has to, and only ever from an advantage. In other words, you’ll probably be throwing wet shells to distract guards. Now, I love stealth games. Adore them. But it’s not like he has a bunch of interesting tools to use. You’re not going to pull out that scrap of bat wing and use it as a hang glider.
The Hobbit describes Gollum as, ‘rather like a spider himself, or perhaps like a starved frog’. I’m all for diversity in video games, but I’ve never thought to myself: ‘You know what? You don’t get to play as many dudes who look like starved frogs these days and I’m sick of it.’
He’s not exactly Sam Fisher, is he? The only thing he has going for him is the fact he’s a good climber, which probably means loads of hopping between handholds to bypass enemies. Probably the odd tailing mission, too. Probably lots of them. Thrilling.
And where will you do this climbing? Inside loads of dark and dingy caves, of course! The majority of the game will likely take place inside cavernous interiors featuring loads of greys and browns, the likes of which we haven’t seen since PlayStation 2.
The first thing you see in the teaser trailer is a dead fish. The second thing you see is a cave. This isn’t gameplay, but the last 20 seconds look like an alternate reality Abe’s Odyssey cinematic (from the PS1 edition).
It’s like making a new Batman game where you play as Alfred. It’s like making a Hitman game where you’re the sushi chef. It’s like making a Forza Horizon game where you play as one of the annoying announcers. A Denethor rhythm action game where you eat cherry tomatoes to the beat would be more appealing. Hmm, maybe that dead fish is symbolism for how well the game will do in the sales charts.
Written by Kirk McKeand on behalf of GLHF.
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