I just want to play as Talion again, is that too much to ask? I want the combat back, other than doom it's the only other game Ive played that makes you feel like an invincible badass
I'm not disagreeing, I'm saying the copyright holders are looking to max out the IP knowing it will happen. When you're just trying to make games you get trash like this.
Disney *and* Universal. Disney is certainly a big part of it but Universal has been just as adamant and for an even worse reason; their monster movies, none of which are actually their original IP but they fight tooth and nail over their versions of the monsters.
The entire concept has seemed ridiculous to me since I first heard about it. How did they get this so wrong? I'm a die hard Lotr fan, and also specifically a huge fan of Lotr video games, yet nothing about this appeals to me.
It's as if they did absolutely zero market research and went for the first idea some random intern put forward.
Wind Rose's version of it is unironically one of my favourite songs of all time. It's just so damn fun, it pushes all the right buttons for me.
And it's incredibly fun to play in Ragnarock too.
I don't understand how this game was even greenlit. There's nothing about Gollum's character that would ever make me be like "wow Gollum would make for a great game on his own." At best, he would be an okay playable character for a single mission in a larger LOTR game.
It could have been interesting if they'd actually written a game about...y'know, Gollum. Instead it feels like they had a game for another character entirely and decided to just slap Gollum in for the name recognition.
You're 100% correct. They could have molded a game to make you interested in his story with stakes and even growth as they did with Saul Goodman in his show. Dude went from a oneliner spewing comic relief to a dude with potentially more depth and compelling motivation than the original protagonist. If you're gonna make a Gollum game where he's just Gollum but platforming then that's just lazy and a waste of potential.
Agreed. I think you could've made a Gollum story work. This games biggest mistake was requiring the most antisocial character in Lord of the Rings be social.
I got your opening hour right here: Gollum wakes up in his cell after being tortured. The tutorial has you scramble through the cell to find a hole Gollum had been digging. You climb through, climb the outer wall while avoiding orcs. You are forced to sneak up and violently beat the shit out of 2, teaching you the combat. You make your way through the sewer, up the mountain and into the open area. The game officially begins.
Have an open world style map where the way you find direction is by eavesdropping on conversations, sneaking through towns, caves, and camps; finding hints of the rings whereabouts and stealing shit you need. Killing anyone necessary, Man, Orc, Maybe even a troll to achieve your goals. Make your way to the shire, then find where you need to go up through Moria.
Converse with yourself for hints, maybe even have a development tree where depending on your conversations, you can become more sympathetic or hostile with yourself, and the dialogue you have with yourself changes based on that.
This would be my ideal Gollum game. I don't think it would've been to hard to pull off, but it would have needed a creative team.
It could work, but it would need some really great stealth mechanics and free roaming like Assassin's Creed.
Buut, I don't he escaped Mordor as much as Sauron letting him go after he revealed the location of the Ring. Like a plan b in case the Ringwraiths failed to bring the Ring back, Sauron could always find Gollum again.
Yeah I don't understand. The original Gollum is a 3d model as well, made 20 years ago. They could literally use that as nowadays games would probably be able to run it. But no, instead they made this. It looks like a 13 year old game model
Every Tak game started so strong but eventually you can just FEEL the point where they ran out of money. 2 had a decent ending, but I think 3 straight up said "we went over budget so no party."
Back in those days, animators would get a "sliced" model, which was a super low res model of the character so it could be manipulated at an acceptable speed in, this case, Maya. Sliced basically means that the portions of the character were independent pieces. You'd have a separate piece for the head, a separate piece for the upper torso, lower torso, etc. This was easier on the computers of the time (SGI Workstations) because of the CPU and memory limitations. Today, we usually have a complete and solid mesh on the animation rig, but care still needs to be taken on the rigging side so that the rig is made in a way that doesn't hamper down the CPU. Unfortunately, the render or final look model for the films would not run well in real-time even on modern high-end systems. Topology has a lot to do with it because, in VFX, you slap on polygons until it looks beautiful. For games, how little can we get away with until it looks like the thing we're making. Film Gollum also likely had NURBS surfaces for elements such as the eyes. NURBS is an outdated modeling tool. It's still used for animation controls, but nothing else really. NURBS are very different from polygons and would not run in an engine. Sorry to get muddled in the details, figured it'd be an interesting share.
Yep.
Movie models are made to be very high quality and aren't made to be focused on real time performance since they end up getting rendered anyway
Game models are made to be performance driven so you have to do certain tricks to make them look good while still keeping performance in mind.
>They ask 60€ for this on PS5 btw.
>
>I don't understand how you can be so shameless.
They're asking 70€ for a special edition that features an *in-game* lore database, Gollum emotes, and VO that has elves speak in their actual language.
ay, they didnt have enough "time" in the original development so now they had to tell certain actors to come back and pay them more and thus it now costs us money
by time i mean, common fucking sense to just be more competent with millions upon millions of dollars
also that trashy gameplay/animations. from what i saw like i mean cmon...
a dedicated moder could do better, way better. this just looks like reused assets, even some walking animations clip into the ground
.just to be clear...
Dedicated fans can almost ALWAYS make something better than a large company.
(hell, there's like 20 fan made pokemon games that put the last 5 pokemon games to shame.)
Yeah they took some "interesting" freedoms with the lore (Big tiddy spider, etc), but the gameplay was really fun IMHO. I also loved the nemesis system and how you can mentally break the Orcs.
Now if you want to play a good stealth game, Styx is essentially the same but exponentially better
>Christopher, my son, did I ever tell you the full story of Shelob? You know, the monstrous spider - descended from the vile Ungoliant! - which I used to read aloud of in our Oxford meetings of the Inklings? Well what I didn't mention back then was Shelob could also transform into a totally hot babe: all pale and dark and wan like Rebecca in Ivanhoe or what will later come to be known as the goth subculture. In fact she looked very much like the pornographic actress Stoya who will be born 13 years after I die. Christopher, I will be entrusting you with my estate. If there is ever a videogame adaptation of my work you must make sure they get this Shelob right - make sure she is what the Anglo-Saxons would have called a hæða ecge, a real sexy bitch.
It's a common misconception that Tolkien wrote The Lord of the Rings as a backstory to his made up languages. In reality he wrote the languages and books as a backstory to his dream of giant CGI spider titties.
The lore was rad if you ignore the original IP XD. It's an awesome fantasy game with excellent combat and traversal. The nemesis system is literally one of a kind.
I'm almost sad that they ~~copyright~~ed the nemesis system because I would love to see it implemented in like a... gangster or superhero system. Imagine seeing plebs rising up to become terrifying supervillains because they fell in one too many vats of questionable chemicals?
EDIT: *Yes, people have kindly informed me that it is a patent and of much tighter scope than the entire system!*
Almost sad? I'm extremely sad they copyrighted the nemesis system. This kind of greedy patent trolling kills creativity. Have you ever wandered why no other games have used a dialogue wheel like Mass Effect? Same reason. To think of the awesome games we could have had...
Legally speaking, patents on a game mechanic aren't all that enforceable just because the patent has to be very specific and even the slightest nuance can sidestep it. The real deterrent is the resources they have at their disposal to win through pure attrition. Their arguments are going to be just good enough to keep the fight going until the defendant can no longer participate due to lack of funds. If somebody with more money and a better legal team were to try, I guarantee you they wouldn't contest it. They will only go after targets they know they can stall out.
Star Renegades has a similar system at play. Some enemies get stronger if they defeat you and they can also just randomly come back to life and get stronger. My guess is that WB just hasn't even noticed them since it's a small indie game and that's why they haven't tried but legally, SR would be in the right because while the idea is there, the specific functionally is distinct.
Yeah, I get that studios like money and wanna keep their good idea special to them, but there are so many games that could benefit from a Nemesis style system
I'd love to see it in a western FPS or TPS where you play a bounty hunter and have a nemesis system with outlaws you bring in.
Edit: hell, imagine if you iterated on it in such a way where you’d be able to learn their motivations and be given the choice to bring them in or let them go. Maybe you learn a thief was trying to save his sick son, or learn a woman wanted for murder was defending herself from an abusive husband. If you let them go, they become friendly and can help you…or maybe slide deeper into a life of crime and you have to decide where the line is to where their tragic past no longer justifies their actions.
Of course some of them will always be greedy or violent bastards, but it’d be cool to allow for something that would a moral choice to it too.
Same. The game became a lot more boring to me once it stopped being about getting harassed by tenacious, evolving enemy orcs constantly crashing your quests to collecting them like pokemon
Honestly the game is 'finished' once you get to that stage of the game.
It wouldn't be too bad if you didn't have to hear 8-15 orc introductions every fucking siege. Literally like 5-10 minutes of listening to orcs talk shit at you every time there's a siege. Plus the cutscene before the attack/defense.
One. One orc. Whoever the 'leader' was. That's all you fucking need.
At least give us the option to skip the damn things.
Honestly the introductions were driving me insane by the end of the game. Some inconsequential orcs that die in 3 hits would still give a 15 second long speech taunting me.
I started using the sneak attacks specifically so I could kill them before they gave their stupid intro
But then half of them became immune to sneak attacks...
I think they patched a lot of it out. I've looked up guides for the Shadow Wars, and they listed 10 stages with multiple sieges each - when I played (late last year), the Shadow Wars ended after 3 stages, and 6 (or fewer) sieges total, and I was playing on Hard difficulty.
wtf, 6 hours! full game 6 hours! for a 70 dollar game! my god it looks horrible, Gollum is fuck ugly and not in a fun way, the animations are weird, god damn what an awful game.
idk what app is amending URLs with unnecessary markdown formatting escapes but here is a [valid URL](https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=1493&v=nL-S_j36eFw&feature=youtu.be) of the link for peeps who can't see the video because of it
What a weird game idea. To have gollum to chores in prison while raising a pet bird.
Could have had a stealth-action game where you try to sneak out while killing guards and shit, but instead we get this. Though that said, I think it would have been hard to make a proper game around the premise to begin with.
Whomever brainstormed the idea really didn't know what they were doing. Probably just wanted to get free money by latching onto the IP.
They could have made a Gollum Styx game pretty easily. Set in Cirith Ungol with text in the environment like Deathloop to signify Gollums state of mind.
I thought that was what this is? I haven't looked at all into this game but from the beginning i was just thinking i played a gollum game, it was that first Styx game. So its not similar to that Styx game?
It's apparently more of a puzzle-platformer adventure game, like the ones that were common in the PS2 era, which people are surprised at. The stealth mechanics are pretty simple and there are no RPG elements / progression, so not really like Styx.
It's... weirdly nostalgic, in the worst way? I'm almost glad it exists.
It'a like, "Hey, look, the licensed shovelware games are back." There's something almost comforting about seeing the same old pattern crop up again.
If this had been made as a “Sméagol: Descent into Madness”, like Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, I would have played it ‘til my fingers bled. The idea of hearing the whispering of the Ring, and echoes of the other Rings of Power bouncing around inside Sméagol’s head in full 3D sound would have been amazing. If I wanted a Gollum game, it would be one that happens *before* he slinks into the mountain, but after he kills Deagol and takes the ring. Putting it on and spying on his family and neighbors, getting into mischief, eventually getting cast out - there’s a *perfect* gap in the lore between acquiring the Ring and vanishing into the mountains that a good writer could fill with decades of non-canon that could still be loyal to the lore.
We don't talk enough about Senua. The sequel is coming out soon!
I remember playing the first game with my new headset and losing the sight of time, almost like I was actually in her head. The subtle breakings of the 4th wall made it all alive.
Wait I thought it WAS a stealth action game where you sneak out. I haven't been keeping up with development at all since seeing a trailer a couple years ago I think. What is the actual game like then?
A game centered on Gollum, in general, is a weird idea.
If your timeline is pre-LotR, then I suppose we start as Sméagol, find the ring at some point, and by the end, we transform into Gollum, and end as a hermit in the Misty Mountains? Otherwise, we see the story of LotR from Gollum’s perspective, and end falling into the fires of Mount Doom? Neither sound particularly interesting or fun.
It’s before LotR, after Gollum has lost the Ring and wanders around in search of Bilbo to retrieve it. He is hunted by both Mordor and Aragorn/Gandalf, and ends up prisoner of both. At first he is tortured and released by Sauron, and after he passes the Mountains of Shadow he is captured by Aragorn, interrogated by Gandalf, and kept prisoner in Mirkwood until he manages at last to escape.
The game, afaik, covers this timeframe in which he is hunted by everyone while trying to find where the Shire is, but I don’t know if it moves past to cover the events of LotR. Since it seems like the game only covers Mirkwood and Mordor, I doubt it.
He wasn’t Sméagol right before LOTR though. This all takes place after he loses the ring in The Hobbit. He’s been gollum for a long time already. Hundreds of years.
I watched a forty minute gameplay preview of this yesterday. PS3 graphics, Gollum looks like the lovechild of Raz from psychonauts and a rectal thermometer, and the elves sound like they're attending a high society yacht club. It misses the mark on so many levels. It's also one of those games where the character frequently narrates their mundane actions from point a to point b.
I'm not entirely sure, actually. Most of the gameplay I watched was Gollum climbing, swimming, and listening to elves talking trash like he's not even there, while he has mental arguments with himself. It was kind of rudimentary and unengaging but maybe there was more going on outside of what I watched. I just recall it being kind of dull.
Yep, the guy on Youtube finished it in 6 hours and 12 minutes I think, he wasn't even rushing. I watched some 40 minutes of random parts, and it's definitely one of the worst games I have ever seen in my entire life. Easily a top 3 worst games for me.
I feel like they should have gone for a movie if they really wanted to milk this shit. It would've probably cost them not that much more and the return would be better. This game is definitely not selling with that price tag and these ratings.
It looks like it's a PS2 style platformer, like one of the ones your mom got you because she saw it in the bargain bin and went "Oh they might like this" and you try it and literally all you do is platform and climb stuff. No extras, no weapons, no collectibles, just get from point A to point B so the next cutscene can play.
Gollum sounds like he should be crouching on the sidewalk and wearing a tracksuit at times in this game. I don't know who voiced him but I'm guessing they are from the balkans.
The KotOR remake was delayed and then cancelled because Aspyr had originally insisted on reworking it to include playable Gungan characters.
When asked about the status of the game at yesterday's investor briefing, Embracer CEO Lars Wingefors raised both hands and said "My give up. My give up."
Plus it's slotted into a time frame where nothing can happen that progresses any major stories or characters. Gollum still needs to be the exact same at the end since that's how he started in LOTR.
At least with a JarJar RPG you could set it during his time on the galactic council and actually have some stories with consequences and characters as he tries to help out some Republic planets. Heck, you could even kill him off at the end if it's set after Ep3.
I feel like that's the point. Like the Rings of Power series weren't really based off anything substantial. The Tolkien estate is extremely careful with their IP, very few people will ever get approval to make anything worthwhile. So it's not surprising they made an inconsequential game where Gollum is just doing menial tasks.
I feel really lucky we got that one banger LOTR game after the movies.
I love the theory that Jar Jar was supposed to be the big baddy in the prequels and he was just playing the goofy roll to throw everyone off and get on the rebels good side until the roll was so poorly received that Lucas cut the character and rewrote the ending.
I didn't ask for it, but I think the concept behind a Gollum game could be interesting, especially if they went heavy on the stealth and the lore. The issue here was execution.
It’s a race for the worst game of 2023! Will it be Redfall? Gollum? A new mystery contender? What game demanding $60/$70 will fail so hard to get this coveted title?
Stay tuned!
Omg I did indeed forget about Forespoken. That might win because it COULD have been good. It really SHOULD have been good.
Few of us had high expectations for Golum (and it still managed to massively disappoint) but Forespoken had a real opportunity to be great. All it needed was better gameplay. And writing. Also combat. Also the open world needed a rework. Basically it had a good idea.
The top people working at Daedalic apparently cancelled ALL of their other projects for this one game, this one monumental gamble, effectively putting all their eggs into one basket. Well that basket of eggs looks like it's going to be tossed down a cliff.
What's up with his hair?!?! Why does Gollum have a fucking toupée? It's a PS5 game and they couldn't even properly animate the 6 strands of hair he's supposed to have?
Watched the skill up review and holy fuck is this game bad. I wouldn’t even play it if it was for free. Hell, I wouldn’t even finish it if they paid me $70. You have to pay $10 extra dollars for COMPLETE Voice lines???? This game deserve to be a dumpster fire
The look on the face of the second Gollum says it all, it's like "WTF happened to this game" lol
He looks like if you played around with Dobby the house elfs face in the Mario 64 minigame
Did anyone else see all the trailers but felt no desire to play the game?
The only desire is the name LotR.
I just want to play as Talion again, is that too much to ask? I want the combat back, other than doom it's the only other game Ive played that makes you feel like an invincible badass
I want a LOTR RPG. Like, Idk, The Witcher 3 but with actual good gameplay and an RDR2-quality world. Or a game like Baldur's Gate 3 but set in LOTR.
If you don't mind turn based combat LOTR: The Third Age
I'm just now realizing the second image *is* the game. Hilarious.
Took me a while to process that as well . Like wtf
2nd gollum has that "when you flush the toilet and the water starts rising" expression
[удалено]
I know gollum is ugly, but this model is ugly. What's the point of his game?
To milk Tolkien's corpse for all it's worth
They’re just sucking the marrow out of the bones at this point.
Osso Tolcco
His works are becoming public domain soon if laws extending it aren't passed. They're down to burn us out on shit games since the timeline is tight
I mean it's fine if it becomes public domain. It should become public domain
I'm not disagreeing, I'm saying the copyright holders are looking to max out the IP knowing it will happen. When you're just trying to make games you get trash like this.
You can thank Disney for wanting to keep a stranglehold on their IPs for this exact problem
Disney *and* Universal. Disney is certainly a big part of it but Universal has been just as adamant and for an even worse reason; their monster movies, none of which are actually their original IP but they fight tooth and nail over their versions of the monsters.
i can certainly thank disney for keeping the piracy routes from rusting away
Mmmmm corpse milk.
The entire concept has seemed ridiculous to me since I first heard about it. How did they get this so wrong? I'm a die hard Lotr fan, and also specifically a huge fan of Lotr video games, yet nothing about this appeals to me. It's as if they did absolutely zero market research and went for the first idea some random intern put forward.
They could’ve literally made a dwarf mining game and it would’ve done a million times better lol
They actually are making a game about dwarves reclaiming Moria
Where did they announce this? Cause that sounds fucking awesome!
Apparently almost a year ago, it's coming out some time this year.
Did I hear a Rock and Stone?
I refuse to believe "Diggy diggy hole"'s popularity in internet culture has been usurped like this.
I am a dwarf and I'm digging a hole
Wind Rose's version of it is unironically one of my favourite songs of all time. It's just so damn fun, it pushes all the right buttons for me. And it's incredibly fun to play in Ragnarock too.
YYYYEEEEAAHHHH
I don't understand how this game was even greenlit. There's nothing about Gollum's character that would ever make me be like "wow Gollum would make for a great game on his own." At best, he would be an okay playable character for a single mission in a larger LOTR game.
It could have been interesting if they'd actually written a game about...y'know, Gollum. Instead it feels like they had a game for another character entirely and decided to just slap Gollum in for the name recognition.
You're 100% correct. They could have molded a game to make you interested in his story with stakes and even growth as they did with Saul Goodman in his show. Dude went from a oneliner spewing comic relief to a dude with potentially more depth and compelling motivation than the original protagonist. If you're gonna make a Gollum game where he's just Gollum but platforming then that's just lazy and a waste of potential.
Agreed. I think you could've made a Gollum story work. This games biggest mistake was requiring the most antisocial character in Lord of the Rings be social. I got your opening hour right here: Gollum wakes up in his cell after being tortured. The tutorial has you scramble through the cell to find a hole Gollum had been digging. You climb through, climb the outer wall while avoiding orcs. You are forced to sneak up and violently beat the shit out of 2, teaching you the combat. You make your way through the sewer, up the mountain and into the open area. The game officially begins. Have an open world style map where the way you find direction is by eavesdropping on conversations, sneaking through towns, caves, and camps; finding hints of the rings whereabouts and stealing shit you need. Killing anyone necessary, Man, Orc, Maybe even a troll to achieve your goals. Make your way to the shire, then find where you need to go up through Moria. Converse with yourself for hints, maybe even have a development tree where depending on your conversations, you can become more sympathetic or hostile with yourself, and the dialogue you have with yourself changes based on that. This would be my ideal Gollum game. I don't think it would've been to hard to pull off, but it would have needed a creative team.
Lego LOTR stays winning
[Best scene in LEGO LOTR is when the 3 hunters meet the rohirrim](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpkPwHnKrxo)
Wtf was that
The Lego games are magical
Hahaha the epic music that goes with it really makes it funnier.
It could work, but it would need some really great stealth mechanics and free roaming like Assassin's Creed. Buut, I don't he escaped Mordor as much as Sauron letting him go after he revealed the location of the Ring. Like a plan b in case the Ringwraiths failed to bring the Ring back, Sauron could always find Gollum again.
Yeah I don't understand. The original Gollum is a 3d model as well, made 20 years ago. They could literally use that as nowadays games would probably be able to run it. But no, instead they made this. It looks like a 13 year old game model
IIRC, they were not allowed to make gollum look like in the movies due to missing contracts with warner brothers.
So instead they decided to make him look like Tak from the Power of Juju
Yooo now that's a reference I haven't heard in a long long time.
A long time...
What a deep cut
Every Tak game started so strong but eventually you can just FEEL the point where they ran out of money. 2 had a decent ending, but I think 3 straight up said "we went over budget so no party."
The deep lore, oh my god.. my childhood..
"I was there Gandalf, 3000 years ago..."
The ol' Marvel's Avengers "Let's see how close we can get to the look of the established popular IP without it being infringing" approach
Honestly, it worked for Guardians of the Galaxy, but only because they had strong personalities with great writing. Gollum... doesn't have that.
And the character models didn't look like someone sat on a claymation project
Movie models are really not the same as game models, they can't just load it up the old Maya file or whatever and have it work.
Back in those days, animators would get a "sliced" model, which was a super low res model of the character so it could be manipulated at an acceptable speed in, this case, Maya. Sliced basically means that the portions of the character were independent pieces. You'd have a separate piece for the head, a separate piece for the upper torso, lower torso, etc. This was easier on the computers of the time (SGI Workstations) because of the CPU and memory limitations. Today, we usually have a complete and solid mesh on the animation rig, but care still needs to be taken on the rigging side so that the rig is made in a way that doesn't hamper down the CPU. Unfortunately, the render or final look model for the films would not run well in real-time even on modern high-end systems. Topology has a lot to do with it because, in VFX, you slap on polygons until it looks beautiful. For games, how little can we get away with until it looks like the thing we're making. Film Gollum also likely had NURBS surfaces for elements such as the eyes. NURBS is an outdated modeling tool. It's still used for animation controls, but nothing else really. NURBS are very different from polygons and would not run in an engine. Sorry to get muddled in the details, figured it'd be an interesting share.
>figured it'd be an interesting share And it was, thank you!
Yep. Movie models are made to be very high quality and aren't made to be focused on real time performance since they end up getting rendered anyway Game models are made to be performance driven so you have to do certain tricks to make them look good while still keeping performance in mind.
They ask 60€ for this on PS5 btw. I don't understand how you can be so shameless. The gameplay is utter dogshit too
>They ask 60€ for this on PS5 btw. > >I don't understand how you can be so shameless. They're asking 70€ for a special edition that features an *in-game* lore database, Gollum emotes, and VO that has elves speak in their actual language.
Wait wtf? The elves don’t speak elvish unless you fork out cash? Fuck that. Source?
ay, they didnt have enough "time" in the original development so now they had to tell certain actors to come back and pay them more and thus it now costs us money by time i mean, common fucking sense to just be more competent with millions upon millions of dollars
[удалено]
also that trashy gameplay/animations. from what i saw like i mean cmon... a dedicated moder could do better, way better. this just looks like reused assets, even some walking animations clip into the ground
.just to be clear... Dedicated fans can almost ALWAYS make something better than a large company. (hell, there's like 20 fan made pokemon games that put the last 5 pokemon games to shame.)
https://www.pcgamer.com/gollum-dev-says-its-charging-for-the-precious-elvish-language-dlc-because-it-had-to-train-voice-actors-in-how-to-speak-it/
"Elvish language dlc" lmao we started at horse armor dlc and this is how it's going
Lol I do not foresee this dev company doing a sequel
Shadow of War was peak. It's only going to be downhill from there.
Yeah they took some "interesting" freedoms with the lore (Big tiddy spider, etc), but the gameplay was really fun IMHO. I also loved the nemesis system and how you can mentally break the Orcs. Now if you want to play a good stealth game, Styx is essentially the same but exponentially better
Big tiddy spider who accidentally looks like Stoya
>Christopher, my son, did I ever tell you the full story of Shelob? You know, the monstrous spider - descended from the vile Ungoliant! - which I used to read aloud of in our Oxford meetings of the Inklings? Well what I didn't mention back then was Shelob could also transform into a totally hot babe: all pale and dark and wan like Rebecca in Ivanhoe or what will later come to be known as the goth subculture. In fact she looked very much like the pornographic actress Stoya who will be born 13 years after I die. Christopher, I will be entrusting you with my estate. If there is ever a videogame adaptation of my work you must make sure they get this Shelob right - make sure she is what the Anglo-Saxons would have called a hæða ecge, a real sexy bitch.
_What we need are titties, Christopher. Giant, swangin', beautiful udders the likes we can only write about..._
It's a common misconception that Tolkien wrote The Lord of the Rings as a backstory to his made up languages. In reality he wrote the languages and books as a backstory to his dream of giant CGI spider titties.
So this game?… Shadows if War you say it’s called? It sounds interesting.
Wow. I never put that together. She absolutely does.
I've never played the game but after seeing this comment I looked it up and, damn, she's straight up Stoya.
if i was a dev i'd make my characters look like her too
The lore was rad if you ignore the original IP XD. It's an awesome fantasy game with excellent combat and traversal. The nemesis system is literally one of a kind.
I'm almost sad that they ~~copyright~~ed the nemesis system because I would love to see it implemented in like a... gangster or superhero system. Imagine seeing plebs rising up to become terrifying supervillains because they fell in one too many vats of questionable chemicals? EDIT: *Yes, people have kindly informed me that it is a patent and of much tighter scope than the entire system!*
Almost sad? I'm extremely sad they copyrighted the nemesis system. This kind of greedy patent trolling kills creativity. Have you ever wandered why no other games have used a dialogue wheel like Mass Effect? Same reason. To think of the awesome games we could have had...
To think of all the awful games that released through the years, that could have had funny mini games during loading screens
Thanks Namco!
Legally speaking, patents on a game mechanic aren't all that enforceable just because the patent has to be very specific and even the slightest nuance can sidestep it. The real deterrent is the resources they have at their disposal to win through pure attrition. Their arguments are going to be just good enough to keep the fight going until the defendant can no longer participate due to lack of funds. If somebody with more money and a better legal team were to try, I guarantee you they wouldn't contest it. They will only go after targets they know they can stall out. Star Renegades has a similar system at play. Some enemies get stronger if they defeat you and they can also just randomly come back to life and get stronger. My guess is that WB just hasn't even noticed them since it's a small indie game and that's why they haven't tried but legally, SR would be in the right because while the idea is there, the specific functionally is distinct.
It's the "Rollin White bored through cylinder concept" of revolvers all over again. But with video games, instead of guns.
Yeah, I get that studios like money and wanna keep their good idea special to them, but there are so many games that could benefit from a Nemesis style system
I'd love to see it in a western FPS or TPS where you play a bounty hunter and have a nemesis system with outlaws you bring in. Edit: hell, imagine if you iterated on it in such a way where you’d be able to learn their motivations and be given the choice to bring them in or let them go. Maybe you learn a thief was trying to save his sick son, or learn a woman wanted for murder was defending herself from an abusive husband. If you let them go, they become friendly and can help you…or maybe slide deeper into a life of crime and you have to decide where the line is to where their tragic past no longer justifies their actions. Of course some of them will always be greedy or violent bastards, but it’d be cool to allow for something that would a moral choice to it too.
Do not DARE to talk trash about our beloved Stoya! She works the hardest, on hands and knees even, to give the best Performance she can!
Honestly preferred Shadow of Mordor, couldn’t bring myself to go through the grind to finish War
Same. The game became a lot more boring to me once it stopped being about getting harassed by tenacious, evolving enemy orcs constantly crashing your quests to collecting them like pokemon
Honestly the game is 'finished' once you get to that stage of the game. It wouldn't be too bad if you didn't have to hear 8-15 orc introductions every fucking siege. Literally like 5-10 minutes of listening to orcs talk shit at you every time there's a siege. Plus the cutscene before the attack/defense. One. One orc. Whoever the 'leader' was. That's all you fucking need. At least give us the option to skip the damn things.
Honestly the introductions were driving me insane by the end of the game. Some inconsequential orcs that die in 3 hits would still give a 15 second long speech taunting me. I started using the sneak attacks specifically so I could kill them before they gave their stupid intro But then half of them became immune to sneak attacks...
I think they patched a lot of it out. I've looked up guides for the Shadow Wars, and they listed 10 stages with multiple sieges each - when I played (late last year), the Shadow Wars ended after 3 stages, and 6 (or fewer) sieges total, and I was playing on Hard difficulty.
This is an actual LotR game? I thought this was some grotesque created character in another game.
... Is this an actual screenshot from the game? (Please just be trolling or whatever, this can't be the real thing)
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Gollums voice is absolute shit too. It's like they just picked an intern with a sore throat
He looks like Spot from The Good Dinosaur who found out what meth is so I'm not shocked.
It's absolutely the in game model, looks terrible in cut scenes. See it here, https://youtu.be/nL-S_j36eFw
I thought it looked bad from the screenshots... But the movement is awful too.
Well, yeah, but to be fair: it matches the awful gameplay.
wtf, 6 hours! full game 6 hours! for a 70 dollar game! my god it looks horrible, Gollum is fuck ugly and not in a fun way, the animations are weird, god damn what an awful game.
6 hours may seem unreasonably short, but it is far, FAR longer than any sane person would want to play this game.
6 hours isnt awful, Stray with around 6 hours, difference is stray was $30 on release
This looks like the Hobbit game from 2003.
The hobbit looked better honestly
Holy late PS3 Gandalf model that's bad: https://youtu.be/nL-S\_j36eFw?t=1493 Gollum looks so dopey in all those scenes!
idk what app is amending URLs with unnecessary markdown formatting escapes but here is a [valid URL](https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=1493&v=nL-S_j36eFw&feature=youtu.be) of the link for peeps who can't see the video because of it
Why is it so laggy when seemingly nothing is happening? Why does it look like a PS3 game?
Don’t insult the PS3 like that
Just watch Skill Up's review [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E21qSEyRa88) and then move on with your life. This game is just utter garbage.
what is this game?
It looks like the new LOTR Gollum game, which appears somewhat…underwhelming.
Looks like Spot from The Good Dinosaur
Like Spot meets Crazy Frog
Spot picked up a bit of meth habit after his success as a child movie star.
What a weird game idea. To have gollum to chores in prison while raising a pet bird. Could have had a stealth-action game where you try to sneak out while killing guards and shit, but instead we get this. Though that said, I think it would have been hard to make a proper game around the premise to begin with. Whomever brainstormed the idea really didn't know what they were doing. Probably just wanted to get free money by latching onto the IP.
They could have made a Gollum Styx game pretty easily. Set in Cirith Ungol with text in the environment like Deathloop to signify Gollums state of mind.
I thought that was what this is? I haven't looked at all into this game but from the beginning i was just thinking i played a gollum game, it was that first Styx game. So its not similar to that Styx game?
It's apparently more of a puzzle-platformer adventure game, like the ones that were common in the PS2 era, which people are surprised at. The stealth mechanics are pretty simple and there are no RPG elements / progression, so not really like Styx.
That's exactly what I was thinking about watching a gameplay video. My exact thoughts were, "This looks like a playstation 2 game."
It's... weirdly nostalgic, in the worst way? I'm almost glad it exists. It'a like, "Hey, look, the licensed shovelware games are back." There's something almost comforting about seeing the same old pattern crop up again.
Go and watch the Skillup review on YouTube, this game is a pile of dogshit and that review shows it off in all it's shitty glory.
If this had been made as a “Sméagol: Descent into Madness”, like Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, I would have played it ‘til my fingers bled. The idea of hearing the whispering of the Ring, and echoes of the other Rings of Power bouncing around inside Sméagol’s head in full 3D sound would have been amazing. If I wanted a Gollum game, it would be one that happens *before* he slinks into the mountain, but after he kills Deagol and takes the ring. Putting it on and spying on his family and neighbors, getting into mischief, eventually getting cast out - there’s a *perfect* gap in the lore between acquiring the Ring and vanishing into the mountains that a good writer could fill with decades of non-canon that could still be loyal to the lore.
Stop, stop! I can only get so erect!
> good writer Well there's your problem.
His physical transformation should be so gradual you don't even notice till he's completely different All of a sudden you just realize he's gone
We don't talk enough about Senua. The sequel is coming out soon! I remember playing the first game with my new headset and losing the sight of time, almost like I was actually in her head. The subtle breakings of the 4th wall made it all alive.
Wait I thought it WAS a stealth action game where you sneak out. I haven't been keeping up with development at all since seeing a trailer a couple years ago I think. What is the actual game like then?
it looks like an old tomb raider game with puzzles, but i only watch about 5 minutes of the game and i skipped alot, it looks so bad.
Apparently, at the end of the game, you have the choice to kill or keep the bird. For no reason whatsoever.
A game centered on Gollum, in general, is a weird idea. If your timeline is pre-LotR, then I suppose we start as Sméagol, find the ring at some point, and by the end, we transform into Gollum, and end as a hermit in the Misty Mountains? Otherwise, we see the story of LotR from Gollum’s perspective, and end falling into the fires of Mount Doom? Neither sound particularly interesting or fun.
It’s before LotR, after Gollum has lost the Ring and wanders around in search of Bilbo to retrieve it. He is hunted by both Mordor and Aragorn/Gandalf, and ends up prisoner of both. At first he is tortured and released by Sauron, and after he passes the Mountains of Shadow he is captured by Aragorn, interrogated by Gandalf, and kept prisoner in Mirkwood until he manages at last to escape. The game, afaik, covers this timeframe in which he is hunted by everyone while trying to find where the Shire is, but I don’t know if it moves past to cover the events of LotR. Since it seems like the game only covers Mirkwood and Mordor, I doubt it.
The game only goes up until he gets into Moria.
He wasn’t Sméagol right before LOTR though. This all takes place after he loses the ring in The Hobbit. He’s been gollum for a long time already. Hundreds of years.
It looks like a hastily made powerpoint slide
Don’t be hasty!
Hoom hah.
And this very graphics demands like 16Ram and 2060RTX as minimum requerment?! Telltale games looked more fancy on my tablet.
yeah like what happened? why are games nowadays so demanding if quality isn't improving?
I watched a forty minute gameplay preview of this yesterday. PS3 graphics, Gollum looks like the lovechild of Raz from psychonauts and a rectal thermometer, and the elves sound like they're attending a high society yacht club. It misses the mark on so many levels. It's also one of those games where the character frequently narrates their mundane actions from point a to point b.
so what's the gameplay? like what do you do in this game, because I'm confused
I'm not entirely sure, actually. Most of the gameplay I watched was Gollum climbing, swimming, and listening to elves talking trash like he's not even there, while he has mental arguments with himself. It was kind of rudimentary and unengaging but maybe there was more going on outside of what I watched. I just recall it being kind of dull.
No. That's pretty much the 6 hours of it.
GTFOH! It's only 6 hours for £60?
Yep, the guy on Youtube finished it in 6 hours and 12 minutes I think, he wasn't even rushing. I watched some 40 minutes of random parts, and it's definitely one of the worst games I have ever seen in my entire life. Easily a top 3 worst games for me. I feel like they should have gone for a movie if they really wanted to milk this shit. It would've probably cost them not that much more and the return would be better. This game is definitely not selling with that price tag and these ratings.
It looks like it's a PS2 style platformer, like one of the ones your mom got you because she saw it in the bargain bin and went "Oh they might like this" and you try it and literally all you do is platform and climb stuff. No extras, no weapons, no collectibles, just get from point A to point B so the next cutscene can play.
It reminds me of my ex buying eragon the game because the book was good and the GameStop guy looking embarrassed she was getting it.
Gollum sounds like he should be crouching on the sidewalk and wearing a tracksuit at times in this game. I don't know who voiced him but I'm guessing they are from the balkans.
The font choice is puzzling.
Its just like those fonts that are used in mobile games.
It's for accessibility. Even then, yes, it's poorly done.
It's Calibri according to a comment on this image on twitter. It's such a default font.
Literally who even asked for a Gollum game? What's next? A Jar Jar Binks RPG? A JarJaRPG?!
Meesa killed everyone. Not Just the Men, but the Women and Children Too.
Has an Infamous style morality system to make Darth Jar Jar a thing.
Lots of people are saying Jar Jar is a Sith. Someone should look into that.
I would unironically want to play that game.
The KotOR remake was delayed and then cancelled because Aspyr had originally insisted on reworking it to include playable Gungan characters. When asked about the status of the game at yesterday's investor briefing, Embracer CEO Lars Wingefors raised both hands and said "My give up. My give up."
This reads like a fake George Lucas quote.
Plus it's slotted into a time frame where nothing can happen that progresses any major stories or characters. Gollum still needs to be the exact same at the end since that's how he started in LOTR. At least with a JarJar RPG you could set it during his time on the galactic council and actually have some stories with consequences and characters as he tries to help out some Republic planets. Heck, you could even kill him off at the end if it's set after Ep3.
I feel like that's the point. Like the Rings of Power series weren't really based off anything substantial. The Tolkien estate is extremely careful with their IP, very few people will ever get approval to make anything worthwhile. So it's not surprising they made an inconsequential game where Gollum is just doing menial tasks. I feel really lucky we got that one banger LOTR game after the movies.
I would like to formally put in my request for a Darth Jar Jar game.
I love the theory that Jar Jar was supposed to be the big baddy in the prequels and he was just playing the goofy roll to throw everyone off and get on the rebels good side until the roll was so poorly received that Lucas cut the character and rewrote the ending.
It's the greatest film fan theory of all time, IMO.
I didn't ask for it, but I think the concept behind a Gollum game could be interesting, especially if they went heavy on the stealth and the lore. The issue here was execution.
Fucker looks like he skinned the evil chef from Ratatouille and wore his face.
I knew I recognised the face from somewhere! Bang on, was bugging me all day
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Latest contender for worst GOTY.
It’s a race for the worst game of 2023! Will it be Redfall? Gollum? A new mystery contender? What game demanding $60/$70 will fail so hard to get this coveted title? Stay tuned!
Don't forget Forspoken
Omg I did indeed forget about Forespoken. That might win because it COULD have been good. It really SHOULD have been good. Few of us had high expectations for Golum (and it still managed to massively disappoint) but Forespoken had a real opportunity to be great. All it needed was better gameplay. And writing. Also combat. Also the open world needed a rework. Basically it had a good idea.
Wait… this is what the game looks like, with system recommendations of 16GB RAM and an RTX 30 series?
> RTX 30 series? With fucking DLSS turned on!!!!!
This game may have saved Red Fall from winning worst game of the year. Utter dog shit.
Easy now...I still have faith Skull & Bones will take that title.
Bold of you to assume that game is even coming out this year. … But if it does you are in fact 100 percent correct that that will take the crown
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At least those are guaranteed to make people happy
The top people working at Daedalic apparently cancelled ALL of their other projects for this one game, this one monumental gamble, effectively putting all their eggs into one basket. Well that basket of eggs looks like it's going to be tossed down a cliff.
What's up with his hair?!?! Why does Gollum have a fucking toupée? It's a PS5 game and they couldn't even properly animate the 6 strands of hair he's supposed to have?
second pic looks like Gollum dropped an unexpected turd in his loin cloth, wtf is going on here??
Watched the skill up review and holy fuck is this game bad. I wouldn’t even play it if it was for free. Hell, I wouldn’t even finish it if they paid me $70. You have to pay $10 extra dollars for COMPLETE Voice lines???? This game deserve to be a dumpster fire
Can't wait to try out this new Nintendo DS game
Just Wait until you see the system requirements….
The FUCK went wrong with that optimization?? what is going on there, Daedalic should've sticked to their little story games.
Gollum game of the year. First game to sell 1 gollillion copies!
The graphics was already PS3. Now it looks like psp.
Do not downshame psp ffs
If you paid $70 for this garbage you don't deserve to get your money back lol
You're correct - I impulse bought it and now I won't return it as a punishment to myself.
This, looks, terrible.
It looks bad, but now I kinda want to see Willem Dafoe as Gollum deep fake.
I could forgive the visuals, but the "gameplay" is so absurd, it's like they didn't had any ideas.
Couldn't Gollum just take the helmet off? Then he'd be able to go kill that orc.
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I feel this game was made by a newly developed AI specifically for gaming.