The Lord of the Rings: Gollum

The first thing to understand about The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is that it is not interested in letting you play as a heroic swordsman. You spend your time slipping through hostile territory, climbing, infiltrating, and staying out of sight as a creature who survives through caution rather than strength.

That focus gives the game a fitting angle on Middle-earth, but it is a narrow one. If the thought of evading Orcs and Elves while Gollum and Sméagol tug at each other sounds more compelling than charging into battle, there is something here for you. Everyone else may find its limitations hard to overlook.

Retro Replay Review

Gameplay

Playing Gollum means accepting vulnerability from the start. He is agile enough to climb and work his way through dangerous spaces, but he is no frontline fighter. The central tension comes from infiltration, stealth, and getting past enemies who can end a bad situation quickly. When you want a Middle-earth game that puts survival ahead of power, that is a genuinely refreshing premise.

The best fit is a patient player who enjoys taking the safer route instead of forcing a confrontation. You can strangle an unaware enemy, but the larger point is avoiding danger, whether that danger comes from Orcs or Elves. That makes every hostile area feel like a problem to navigate rather than an arena to clear.

That same commitment will frustrate anyone arriving for the usual fantasy action payoff. Gollum’s weakness is appropriate to the character, yet it also puts a ceiling on how forceful the game can feel. If you want to dominate a battlefield, look elsewhere. If you can enjoy being the desperate figure sneaking around the edges of a war, the game at least knows what it wants you to do.

Graphics

The behind-view camera keeps Gollum at the center of the journey as he moves through Middle-earth locations including Barad-dûr, Mirkwood, and Thranduil’s dungeons. Those places give the adventure a useful range, from Mordor’s threat to the confinement of an Elven prison, rather than trapping the character in one type of landscape.

Story

This is a side story running alongside The Fellowship of the Ring, built around Gollum’s attempt to recover the Precious. It begins with his flight from Mordor, where he has faced the Mouth of Sauron and Shelob, and carries him toward Thranduil’s dungeons. That is a strong framework for a story about a character always moving under pressure.

Gollum and Sméagol are not merely names attached to the same lead. Their competing personalities shape choices that affect Gollum’s precarious alliances. That is the most promising dramatic hook in the game, because it puts his famous inner conflict into decisions instead of treating it as background flavor.

The story works best when you are interested in the less glamorous corners of Tolkien’s world. You are following a hunted, compromised survivor, not a noble questing party. For a closer outline of its official premise, the official PlayStation page is useful context.

Overall Experience

The Lord of the Rings: Gollum deserves credit for refusing the easiest version of a licensed fantasy game. Making stealth, agility, and evasion the foundation is true to its protagonist, and the personality choices give the journey a more personal stake than a simple chase after the Precious.

Still, this is a specialized adventure rather than a broadly satisfying one. Its core fantasy is being cornered, sneaky, and underpowered, which can be compelling in short bursts but will not replace the direct action many players expect from Middle-earth. The game asks you to meet it on Gollum’s uncomfortable terms.

Give it a chance if you are drawn to the character and want a stealth-led detour through the period around The Fellowship of the Ring. Skip it if your ideal Tolkien game revolves around open combat, heroic strength, and grand victories. Its most distinctive choice is also its biggest limitation.