I have been an enormous fan of The Lord of the Rings since I saw The Fellowship of the Ring in the cinema when I was six. Since then, I’ve had Tolkien’s insignia tattooed on my shoulder, saved up several weeks’ worth of wages to buy various first editions of The Professor’s work, and played just about every single Lord of the Rings video game to ever hit store shelves. After getting a sneak peek at the world of The Lord of the Rings: Gollum during Daedalic Digital 2021, ❀I’m confident it’s going to be one of the best Lord of the Rings games yet - particularly because of 🍨how absolutely phenomenal its rendition of Mordor looks.
Mordor has appeared in various video games before. In The Lord of the Rings Online, it’s got pretty cool architecture, but I’m not sure the MMO backbone does the more insular areas or dynamics any justice. EA Redwood Shores’ The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King from 2003 features a version of the illustrious region that was spectacular for its time, but 18 years later it’s pretty easy to see how strictly functional the small slice of Mordor it carved out for itself is. The pair of Middle-earth games - Shadow of Mordor and Shadow of War - offer the best iteration of Sauron’s demesne to date, boasting sublimely grimdark environments and refreshingly versatile world traversal. They just took theও lore and laughed at it, though, so it’s hard to award their Mordor full marks for aesthetic alone.
A lot of people have expressed concern over the last couple of years about why anybody would want to play through an entire game as Gollum. It’s a fair point if you’ve only watched Peter Jackson’s original trilogy and maybe the three Hobbit films - which aren’t great by any means, but aren’t half as awful as some extremely hyperbolic statements ꩵclaim they are either. The more Tolkien you ꧃read, though - about the One Ring, Mordor, and Gollum himself - the more you’ll realize that, actually, Gollum is one of the most fascinating characters in the entire legendarium, and being given the opportunity to play as him is an absolute godsend. The main caveat to this game was never the story, or mechanics, or characters - it was where Gollum was going to be located. After witnessing his escape from Barad-dur after being tortured by Sauron’s forces for information, I can confidently say that Gollum’s Mordor is like an omni-directional playground, teeming with more possibilities than you could possibly imagine.
It’s worth putting Gollum’s escape into context. While🌼 I’m unsure about whether or not Daedalic’s game will address this, Gollum was intentionally let loose from his prison cell in Barad-dur, Sauron’s main stronghold in Mordor. As described in The Book of Lost Tales, “Sauron perceived the depth of Gollum's malice towards those that had ‘robbed’ him, and guessing that he would go in search of them to avenge himself, Sauron hoped that his spies would thus be led to the Ring.” This comes after the Dark Lord got those two infamous words from him - “Shire! Baggins!” - which led him to deduce that the only thing Gollum was fit for at this point was to be a bloodhound. This makes the escape I saw - where you are attempting to avoid patro🤡lling orcs, who may or may not be canonically in on the prison break setup - far more intriguing. We all know that Gollum is driven by the One Ring, but seeing the fact that Sauron is attempting - and often failing - to act as puppetmaster could be extremely fascinating if that’s the direction Daedalic decides to go in.
But that’s just the premise, isn’t it? The main reason I’m writing this article is to comment on level design in Gollum, which is probably the most fundamental building block for a game of this type to work. Barad-dur and the towers of the boundle🍌ss Mordorian landscape surrounding it are imposing monoliths of institutional fear, but they’re also unique obstacle courses designed for Gollum’s weird majesty of movement. Consider this quote from Aragorn in response to Frodo drawing his sword as the company sails out of Loth🎐lorien along the Anduin in The Fellowship of the Ring.
“So you know about our little footpad, do you? He padded after us all throu𓄧gh Moria and right down to Nimrodel. Since we took to boats, he has been lying on a log and paddling with hands and feet. I have tried to catch him once or twice at night; but he is slier than a fox, and as slippery as a fish. I hoped the river-voyage would beat him,🃏 but he is too clever a waterman.”
This describes less than a fraction of Gollum’s skillset. He can crawl through quagmires, skirt along clifftops, swing through forests, and scuffle through underground caverns without making the slightest sound. He’s not just ambidextrous - his four limbs are assigned almost equal governance over his movements, making him an extraordinarily persnickety bastard. The trailer I saw also showcased his notorious ability to see in🥂 the dark and visualize sounds. You know that mechanic where you can use a listen mode to see silhouettes through solid objects? That actually makes sense with Gollum, except he can probably tell how many adversaries there are, what kind of weapons they’re packing, and what exact hairstyle each individual per🀅son has, too.
Barad-dur makes use of all of this. It’s like an early Assassin’s Creed game, where the map goes up instead of out꧋. It’s layered to the point where you can skulk through the area at ground level, evading orcs by hiding under carts and using shadows to your advantage, or monkey-bar your way across devastatingly high kinks protruding from the tower’s exterior. Gollum was always going to be a stealth game, but it’s refreshing to see its indulgence in parkour, too. It’s also worth mentioning the topographical diversity of Barad-dur, which makes route-planning an essential part of survival. I imagine some of the most effective strategies will involve oscillating up and down like a Newton balance tipped on its side.
I’ve only seen about 20 minutes of Gollum gameplay, and I recognize all I saw was a ten-month-old version of Barad-dur. Gollum’s face still looks rough. His eyes are too insectile, bulging in a way that resembles a housefly under a microscope more so than a decadent hobbit. The map itself, though - the colors, the towers, the countless nooks, crannies, ridges, and rafters that scream to be clung to - is nothing short of a spectacle. If the final game lives up to that, The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is going to be a whole lot better than most people expect it to be. If you're curious for more, check out our 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:full impressions.