LOTR: Gollum - Before You Buy 

Before you buy: don't

A Lord of the Rings: Aragorn game would've been awesome, especially if it was set in his life prior to the films as Strider as he wandered across the lands.

Just by hearing you talking about the downsides of this game, I was imagining all the possible ways they could have done, just from the top of my head: survival mode - gollum needs to survive and escape in an increasingly challenging dungeon from the bottom to the top. social mode - gollum needs to interact with orcs and manipulate them into an internal war, which he will use to eliminate all his enemies and spare the ones that were good with him. psychological horror mode - let us take a peek at Gollum's broken mind and how it affects his tortured soul.

I was so hype for this game. It sounded so unique. I only thought they would have made it if they already had some really good ideas to put into it. I imagined yourself playing as Sméagol from finding the ring to falling into the fire of Mount Doom.

I don't think anybody can think of anyone else being Gollum other than Andy Serkis.

I had wishlisted this game when it was announced and wanted to buy it. But seems like now I wouldn’t even wanna play it even if it came onto PS Plus😳

They could have made an awesome stealth survival game out of this. Gollum could have been down in the caves, sneaking past Orcs and Goblins.

Best review I've seen of this trainwreck. You were fair and gave a balanced overview, not just going for the obvious laughs. Thank you.

I’ll never understand how or why this exists….it’s like making a Star Wars game where you only play as Jar Jar.

At this point, I think a "Before you sell your game" video is something lots of people need to listen to

I would have liked it to be an origin story; like from teenage Smeagol and Deagol era getting in trouble to them discovering/finding the ring and Smeagols turning to the dark side, and the guilt he felt from cancelling his brother leading him to banish himself. That would have been a game. I wanted that!

Never seen Jake call out a game outright. Even if there are bad elements, Jake always finds positives and gives a balanced opinion. This must be real trash if Jakes says its bad

Sometimes things are exactly what you expect them to be

Thank you Soooooooo much for this. You’ve confirmed everything I feared from the original trailer.

I think it would’ve been way cooler if this game was about Sméagol’s turn to Gollum and just exploring more of that part of his life.

The audacity to put a lore compendium behind a $70 paywall... for a game that has a visible stench rising off of it is completely bonkers, thanks modern gaming!

They could have made this into a really polished niche AA LOTR next gen tech demo focused on showcasing what Middle Earth could look like in the 9th generation while immersing the player into the character of Gollum. Something like Hellblade’s psychosis through voices from the one ring’s corruption would have been amazing. I wouldn’t have paid more than $35 for it, but it still could have been something special.

This had so much potential, I really wanted to experience middle earth to its fullest and I was hooked about playing gollum...

A Lord of the Rings: Hobbit game would be awesome. Like the ones that stays in the Shire - farming, enjoying the wonderful nature and just living life. Sort of like Farming Simulator meets, Sims 4 meets Lotr. Who wouldnt wanna spend the days in the Shire just hanging out?

To me, it seems that this Gollum game would've been better as a Shadow of War DLC. With the Shadow of War mechanics and nemesis systems and also having Gollum introduced already as part of the story, it would have made for a lot more fun and compelling gameplay as well as a better story.

This game is finally out? Wasn't this talked about like...5 years ago or something. I didn't expect this game to be good at all.

What really baffles me about this, is that if you wanted to build a game/story around gollum out of all characters. (Which is weird in the first place) Why wasn’t this a horror survival game being trapped in Mordor being chased by the orcs? Make Mordor scary not cartoonish? Why isn’t there some story there to lead him towards finding Bilbo himself? Maybe dueling with his personalities and a internal struggle? Like nothing at all? It’s like making cookies out of a package but still effing it up.

This feels like that minigame portion you play in the middle of a bigger game.

We can always count on Jake for a 'no bullshit' honest opinion "Before you buy" Love you man - keep doing what your doing!

You know it’s a bad game when Jake flat out says it’s bad

The face expressions after a finished sentence in this game changing into default mode or like a t-pose 🥴🥲

I felt like Gollum and Smeagol in my first few seconds of playing this game. I tried to look for the positives such as the choices between Gollum and Smeagol, but then I crashed twice, the graphics looked horrible and for some reason Gollum turned into superman and I flew out of bonds, breaking the game.

I love listening to guys like angry Joe just tear bad games apart but I also enjoy listening to Jake be as kind as possible to the worst games 😂. This is about as mean as he gets.

"Something went wrong here" pretty much sums it up 😅

I tried it... When you have to lure the orcs into the spider nest almost right at the start. That is the point where I just alt+f4-ed and deleted it. The orcs bugged so they wouldn't follow me, but when I got close to them it said I have to restart or reload a checkpoint. Turns out that was the checkpoint so when I loaded it back it immediately said I failed. When I chose restart level it put me back right at the start of the game.

Always appreciate you're honesty! Great review as always!

Best gaming channel period. No bullshit, straight to the point, honest and authentic. Thanks!

It may have been more interesting to have started the story of Sméagol before he took The Ring for himself and his life as a Hobbit. Then his evolution into Gollum and his encounter with Bilbo. There is so much more to his story than is depicted in the films and if it was, would be more interesting than what any game can depict. It would be difficult to create a game with such a character who more than likely wished to avoid conflict or even contact with others. His obsession with The Ring drove him to seek out Frodo and track him and to even lead Frodo and Sam to Shelob. And even then Gollum would have to find a way to retrieve The Ring from Shelob who very likely knew what it represented. Sauron allowed Shelob to act as guard of Cirith Ungol ("Pass of the Spider") she was independent of Sauron and if she possessed The Ring who knows what may have happened! Gollum is truly as sad and tragic figure and yet even Gandalf predicted that he may yet have had a part to play in the fate of Middle Earth. He did!

This is why your videos are so important, you get a feel for the game

I’m so grateful for this channel

I would love to know more about what happened behind the scenes. Like why does it exist? Why the weird monetization? What he lackluster gameplay? Was it a budget thing? Did they have a good idea but stopped trying once they revealed it and reception was bad? It all just feels so weird. Not to mention gollum as the protagonist. I feel like they probably had something really cool and unique up their sleeves but something happened along the way to throw the whole thing off. Just so curious lol.

It looks and sounds like what could have been a small, serviceable Gollum section in a proper LotR/Middle-Earth game, but stretched out into its own thing.

As someone who wrote short stories and occasionally longer ones as well as poems, this is like a missed opportunity. There could be SO MUCH in this story. Just to brainstorm real fast: a broken creature having amnesia every time he switches from one personality to other, having to undo the evil gollums actions. Story could start with gollum loosing his memories and finding himself on weird places holding bloody weapons etc, and then slowly realizing he has multiple personalities (something like moon knight series if you know what it is). And then piece together a story to owerthrow his bad self which is getting weaker and weaker due to the ring is not with him (but still strong enough) with drama, hidden clues, action, lot of monologue. And then eventually becoming the gollum in the movies where the two personalities found equilibrium.

My god, you completely nailed my initial thoughts about the game. The whole "what a strange choice" and "who wants to play as this guy". No other review I have seen has mentioned that.

Been waiting for this one, was 50/50 about how it would shake out. You also don't see Jake come out and flatly say a game isn't good, pretty substantial imo.

"What's taters precious?!?!" "Po-ta-tos!" 😂😂😂😂😂😂 (My favorite scene)

Lol your opening introduction where you said it's him banged up somewhere recounting the time he was banged up somewhere else had me thinking sarcastically "well this sounds interesting already" 🤣

The fact they have made an amazing Star Wars and Harry Potter game this year, it’s disappointing that there isn’t an equally as good lord of the rings game this year

With folks being more connected than ever on Reddit and RU-vid and Twitch there might be a move back to single-player games as one of the few remaining shared event experiences.

Ah damn, I expected it to by very similar to a STYX game. But just to learn that it wasn’t turns me away.

I would love to see the expensive hardware requirements discussed in these videos

You had me at tries to eat a fly, falls over, shits his pants.

I thought this could work as like “Stray in Mordor” but they didn’t seem to have any vision on how to make it compelling

Lmao the walking animation. he's sliding faster than his limbs are moving and it makes my chest feel funny with rage

Oh boy have I been waiting for this video lads

I got it for the Sindarin voice over.. havent actually played it yet but hopefully just hearing the language throughout will get me through it lol

Tolkien rolling over in his space tomb

That swing animation😂😂

It looks and plays like one of those "work in progress" UE4 games that were everywhere around 2018-2020

I really liked the music and the dialogue choices. Unfortunately the gameplay was frustrating and I even had some glitches and the nazgul scene is cool. I was also hoping for some love with Shelob

Just watched a before you buy from 6yrs ago and it was just as good as this one I love the consistency of the gameranx crew it never disappoints

Ah yes the game of the year contender that will go toe to toe with Tears of the kingdom!! 😂

Always refreshing to hear a review from someone who doesn't just needlessly shit on a game just because it's the popular thing to do so, but gives a game a fair shot, and then even if it isn't a good game, sees it for what it is, and highlights its bright spots as well, recognizing that actual love was in fact put into it, albeit perhaps misguided love. Instead of just calling it pure garbage because everyone else does.

Try out the Styx games if you have a hankering for a small weirdo crawling around in the shadows, they're quite fun. And try the Middle Earth games from 2014 and 2017 to get some Gollum moments.

I love this channel so much Thank you guys for your commitment to the player experience and always being honest with us

Battle for middle earth 2 strat, return of the king, two towers PS2 combat games, and the mod for medieval 2 total war are still the best lord of the rings games by far

This is the nicest review of this game I've seen online thus far.

Well as a kid I have always been afraid of Gollum and I couldn't even watch the films because of him....but a few years later I got used to him and now I enjoy the character very much And I asked myself at one point "what if there was a Gollum game to play this tortured soul And yes if the game is terrible I still would loved to play this and be Gollum...plus I want to do my Gollum voice through the whole game

I've had this one on my wishlist since it was listed. Wasn't really sure how such a game would turn out, as it was a rather unusual idea. Sad to see they weren't able to take this to the next level. Darn.

I wish they would make a modern The Lord of the Rings The Fellowship of the Ring videogame. This was a blast back in the day.

1:34 m8 its comments like this that make me laugh and make me love your channel even more - thanks !

The only reviews I ever watch to base my decisions to buy games. Jake baldino is hands down the best reviewer here on RU-vid, absolutely spot on and honest with his reviews, no paid bs lies.

I never knew this existed, thanks!

This is like if rocksteady used the batman license to make an Alfred game

I always think about the creative crew that made this. They've had meetings for years/months. Love and time pumped in. But what comes out is a duff. Brutal. But sometimes it just doesn't work😢

Been looking forward to your review of this one 😂

Saw this coming from a mile away

Last time I was this early I was riding to work on a dinosaur

I didn't have hope for this, but I wanted to be surprised.

Never even knew this was a thing planned. Would've loved it if it was fleshed out, but not disappointed by any means lol

This is the funniest, weirdest cash grab idea since Morbius

He’s evil and he’s sweet helpless, should not be in the same sentence , though it is true and funny

Redfall and Gollum here giving TOTK a run for it's money.

I was curious, this could be a perfect stealt game. Gollum is a sneaky caracter that hides in the shadows, escaping the depts of saurons dungeons sounds awesome. A big missed opportunity

I had this pre-ordered because I love stealth games, but the last time it got pushed back in December, I knew something was wrong and immediately canceled. Nice to know I was right. Thanks.

"-and then he falls over and shits his pants, or, idk" instantly provided more entertainment than this entire game lol

It's been a long time since I've heard Jake go this hard on a game

Man I wanna play as the fellowship in a lotr gam again, like back on return of the king for Xbox.

Keep up the great work Jake … We appreciate you always! 💯🤜🏾🤜👊💪

This is the nicest review I've seen for this game so far.

Lord of the rings War of the north remains my favorite lotr games and my top 5 all time favs

Was kind of excited about this, had it on the wishlist on Steam… thanks for saving me $60! 👌

I was confused how they could possibly make a whole game playing as Gollum a fun experience. Whaddya know, they can't!

Thanks for your honesty Jake that shows a lot of integrity you usually give everything the benefit of the doubt but when the game is that bad you called it like you saw it thanks for such a great review

I am actually pleased with your total honesty, I loved the “Shadow of Mordor” game and played it’s sequel “Shadow of War” (but didn’t like how dark it got). When I saw the initial trailer for this “Gollum” game I thought that the quality and style of the previous games were missing. Instantly I realized either a different crew worked on this or it was just a mobile game. Point is after your great review (sometimes you are bit too kind with your assessments), but you did solidify my decision to avoid this title altogether.

I never knew about this game til today. Picked it up, nothing mind blowing but my 9 yr old boy likes it. His 1st stealth-like game.

Before you buy is the best review for games hands down. Really appreciate you guys.

This seems like a good time to talk about the Snake Eater remake

lol I like your emote idea Jake

They need to make a badass complete Tolkien Universe game that is part Assassin's Creed Odyssey, and part Skyrim. I mean this is a game that you purchase in sections because it is so large. Think of Skyrim but times it by 10. The game is so large that you need a separate 2 terabyte hard drive to store it on. The game starts out in the first age and you go through all the main events of the Silmarillion and then the Hobbit and finally the LOTR. The game sticks solely to canon and it costs $1000.00. Electronic Arts, and Sony make it happen.

Damn. I was really rooting for this one. Playing as Gollum sounded like an interesting concept.

Jake is saying what I've been thinking about this game since it was announced

I wasn't interested in this game but thanks for the before you buy video you're amazing JB 👍

Bought Boltgun this month. Might just be the best game of the year.

Once again your going too save me some money..I was about 75 percent that I wasn’t going to be buying it anyway but this video just solidified it for me..thanks dude 👊🏻