![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ach_sss_noTable of Contents | Next
Gollum: No breath, no cheer, death not to fear.
Gollum: Time is not spent, roses has no scent.
Gollum: At nothing you can marvel without me.
Sméagol: But it wasn't roses, my precious. Not roses. Lilies... not lilies. Not roses. Which one was it, precious?
(it's a little unclear in screencaps: this next image is a reflection in a puddle)
Ugly naked man?
Gollum the ugly naked man!!!
This won't come up again for a while: Gollum's mutterings just now were him pondering a childhood riddle from years and YEARS ago. The funny thing about it is we're never going to hear what the answer to the riddle was and Gollum doesn't seem to care. He's hung up on the flower thing.
Gollum: Quiet! Someone's coming.
Wizard: An old man with a stick and a hat and a cage upon his back...
Elvenking: We may provide you with a cart. There is no hope for him, I fear. The creature is lost.
(This was unclear to me the first couple times I saw this exchange, so I am going to laboriously explain it. We're jumping into a conversation that was started somewhere out of our/Gollum's heairng: Thranduil doesn't want Gollum to be here, for some reason! He's insinuating that Gandalf should take him away, and Gandalf's line here is an oblique way of saying 'Thranduil, I have no house. They call me the Grey Pilgrim because I don't live anywhere. do you expect me to piggyback him around in a birdcage for the rest of my life or something??')
Wizard: Well, let's see how he responds to some light.
This encounter we're seeing is directly out of Fellowship of the Ring, though of course it's not depicted directly there, just recounted by Gandalf:
By the way, do you see how grainy the lighting is? That's not a capture issue- it's the game. It actually looks better in the screenshots because they got ever so slightly blurred.
Funny thing: This is the only place in the entire game where I get this problem with the lighting. In the FIRST FEW SECONDS of the game. You can refund a game until you get 2 hours in... and this game puts some uniquely borked visual effects in the first two minutes. The audacity!
Elvenking: Someone tortured him. Long before the Dunadan found him.
Elvenking: Darkness grows beyond our borders. My people are growing anxious. We cannot let this evil linger among us, Gandalf.
I like this Thranduil's fashion sense but I'm not so sure about his face. He looks weirdly old, for an ageless immortal being.
I also like this sort of quirky anime-style design for Gandalf. Unfortunately, you won't see it for a while, but HIS face is just awful. Such a shame. It’s also a shame that this is one of the first models you see and you're going to get a closeup.
Wizard: Leave us. I want to hear what he has to say.
...this game is very frustrating. I really like this color palette, the composition, the lighting. It's just that... pesky 3d rendering.
I swear there is a masterpiece hidden in this game that no one will ever see. I'm sane, by the way.
The screen fades to black, and we see some logos for the companies that made this game come to be (Daedalic Entertainment, Nacon, and Middle-Earth Enterprises), while the conversation continues.
Wizard (off): Why don't we start with your name?
Gollum (off): (Noises [as in, not speech]) Gollum, gollum.
Wizard (off): [calmly] Your real name. Not the one others have given you.
[There is a long, awkward silence where Gollum does not give his name.]
Wizard (off): Very well. Let us try someone else's name then. Bilbo Baggins.
Gollum (off): (Hisses)
We abruptly switch over to some 2d ink art. I love this kind of art and I'd love to see more of this, and it pains me to tell you that this never comes back in the game (although- well, nah. that would be telling.) Enjoy it while you've got it.
Wizard(off): He found you. More than sixty years ago.
Wizard (off) Deep underneath the roots of the Misty Mountains.
Wizard(off) He took something from you.
Gollum(off) Thieef!
Wizard(off) A ring.
Gollum(off) My Precioussss.
And unfortunately I also think the changes to Gollum had a negative impact on some pivotal scenes with Sam and Frodo (because he's their main villain and he's been nerfed). That gets to the core of the story and is a much more egregious offense than just failing to depict my frog waifu. And I also find it disappointing that the movie version of LOTR is the only version most people seem to know.
So, regardless of any licensing problems that may or may not have been involved: basing a character study around Gollum on the books, instead of the PJ movies, is 110% the correct decision.
let me put it this way. Would you base a Tom Bombadil game on the movies??? no you would not
Gollum(off): (Muttering)
Wizard(off): You left your home in the mountains.
Wizard(off) Worming your way down the hills, always hiding from the moon.
New Objective: Day is near. Go back to your cave!
Gollum: Nothing! Nothing! Must go back hungry again!
Gollum: Curse this land! Curse it! Curse it!
current mood:
And here's our first good look at an explorable/interactible area.
I'm a big fan of the environmental design in this game. It suffers from lack of visual polish and is occasionally marred by Gollum's randomly placed playground equipment, but the color palettes and the visual direction appeal to me a lot. Like the rest of the visuals, it’s clear some creativity and care went into this and the technical side didn’t always bear it out to its full potential, but the environmental modeling is more successful than the character modeling.
Fellbeast[not subtitled in-game]: (HIDEOUS SHRIEKING)
It's a pretty derpy facial expression but I think I would make the same face if a fellbeast popped up two inches away from me.
Gollum: Come! The cave. We're almost there.
There's a little banner in this tree. It's not commented on, but we later see that Gollum marks trails to help him navigate, so he could have been the one to put this here. (It could also have been the orc that used the cave previously.) also YES this is what I was talking about when I said the texture streaming/dynamic resolution would lead to some suboptimal visuals YES this looks like trash YES it does
I misunderstood 'no foothold' when I first saw it & thought it meant no ground underneath us. Actually, what this means should be obvious to anyone with two brain cells: Gollum has gone from clinging to the wall with his feet to hanging solely supported by his skinny little arms. A 'foothold' means a foothold on the wall.
Gollum(off): Orc lived there, yes. Hiding from the Great Eye. We thinks. Long gone, when we came, the nasty Orc. Long dead.
We have now reached the cave.
The ancient cavedweller produces artwork that stylistically resembles paleolithic cave art! I'm... not entirely sure what all of this is meant to depict, but I think I see orcs and a boat. I think that's also a swirly two-headed snake?
Wizard(OFF): You must have had friends once. A family.
Gollum(OFF): They kicked us! Cast us out. Curse them all! Curse them! It WAS our birthday. Yes, it was!
Wizard(OFF):Your birthday?
Gollum: No nice friend, was he, precious? Not tricksing us now, is he, hm? No. No. Not anymore.
The subtitles don't convey his tone of voice. Gollum is practically purring over whatever he did to this orc. 
Well I have finally seen everything. Time to catch a bird.
We exit through this tunnel... oh the red streaks? There's a mechanic that can give you a hint where to go. I didn't need to know where to go, but this mechanic also highlights interactible objects so I turned it on in case there was something I missed. We'll get a proper intro to this later.
Wizard(OFF): So you never left that tunnel?
Gollum(OFF): [while leaving tunnel] Never!
Wizard(OFF): And no one ever saw you?
Gollum(OFF): No one.
New Objective: Hunt the spy!
We're charging down this bird. Now- Middle-Earth does have birds that spy for Sauron. We'll see some birds later on that are confirmed Mordor spies. At this point in the game, we haven't seen them yet, and we never hear that THIS type of bird spies. Gollum could be paranoid, but to be honest, in his situation I think most reasonable people would be.
Gollum: Ssss. Nasty bird. It watches us! It spies on us! Catch it! Grab it! Throttle it!
That is not a different type of climbing wall. That's the bramble-type one we saw earlier but now the textures are destroyed. How does this area work with texture streaming? Fine! responsive. Ugly. How was it before I turned on texture streaming? Horrible, thanks for asking.
You just run at the wall full tilt. Gollum will automatically latch onto the wall-crawling path, scrabble up it at top speed while making panic noises and at the top he'll grab a ledge if there is one, or drop back down if there isn’t oneand you forget to tell him to jump. It's one of his smoothest and most satisfying moves, unless you take a while to catch on and you keep jumping at the wall instead of running at it and wondering why you're not going up the wall. *ahem*
Wheeeeeee!
This is another move I started to really enjoy once I got the hang of it.
Zoom!
Sideways wall running works like straight-ahead wall running but sometimes runs into minor issues where he doesn't go into the move because you hit the wall at the wrong angle. Or, well, because I misjudge the angle. (This problem may actually be the game, though. Gollum gets hung up on level geometry sometimes, he's just so old and tiny!)
Gollum: Filthy little spy. It will tell the wraiths and squeal on us! Dirty little spy. Squeeze it, yes, squeeze the croakser! And then we eats! Gollum! Gollum!
:3c it's a small detail but I do appreciate that the game noticed that Gollum tends to make that noise when he's thinking about food (food that is presently still alive)
There are two prompts of note in this image:
F to jump backwards
E to drop
The 'jump backwards' prompt usually only appears when there is a valid target that your jump trajectory will safely take you to. Usually. I learned to check for myself first. <_<
For some mysterious reason, E-to-drop appears every time you're clinging to something, constantly, throughout the entire game. You'll be seeing a lot of it. 99% of the time when you see it, there is a bottomless death pit below me. DISREGARD.
Suddenly we hear Orcish voices ahead.
Orc: He's alive!
Orc Captain: Of course he's alive, you scum! Did they breed you in a crate? Her Ladyship just gave him a sweet little kiss.
Gollum: Cautious now. Less speed. Orcs mustn't see us.
Orc Captain: There, see? Right on his neck.
We're hiding in the grass now. Gollum's model turns to a silhouetted version when he's in a 'hidden from view' spot, like tall grass, as here, or shadowed areas. Enemies can't hear us if we crouch-crawl, but Gollum's normal walk produces a flappy-feet sound that draws attention.
Orc: Kissed him, eh?
Orc Captain: Probably forgot about him, or he'd be off to her larder. Lady doesn't care too much for our sweet flesh and bones.
Orc: Isn't that Ufthak?
Orc Captain: It IS Ufthak! In some pretty new silk! What's the plan, Ufthak? Skip the night shift?
Orc: Shouldn't we cut him loose, Captain Shagrat?
Orc Captain: Leave him hanging, you foolish scum! No good interfering with her Ladyship's affairs.
Orc: What if the Lady's still around?
Orc Captain: Go a few steps into the cave. When you hear something, you shout and stand your ground.
(he actually went into the cave...)
Orc: Brr. Hate night watch. Ufthak's lucky. He's warm.
Orc Captain: You want to swap places with him?
Enough of that- back to chasing the bird:
We book it and enter a cutscene:
.
Second Orc: Back to the tunnel! Come on!
must've been the wind
Gollum: They left!
First Orc: What was that?
We have control again and are climbing a wall well away from where the Orcs can see us.
Wizard(OFF): And that's how far you ever went into Mordor?
Gollum(OFF): We never, never left the clouds. Why is it asking us?
New Objective: Catch the birds!
Gollum: There it is, the spy! Two of them. Two little croaksers.
(Gollum sounds pleased. Prey!)
The bird we've chasing has returned to its nest, where there's another bird.
Gollum makes a grab and the birds fly away in a whirl of motion blur.
Gollum (not subtitled): [angry noise]
(this was in the content warnings, don't get mad)
Gollum: Sss. Climbed up too high, didn't we, precious? Not safe here. HE mustn't see us. No, not HIM.
By the way, Gollum's model is also subject to texture streaming. That's why he looks so baby-faced. He's missing an additional layer of wrinkles and dirt that won't load in. This is a major reason why I'm not doing a video playthrough.
FYI, my computer IS underneath the minimum recommended tech requirements, so I'm hesitant to blame the game for this. On one hand I am sure it could be better optimized, on the other hand, the game did warn me my equipment was under par. I get a 'you don't have enough vram and that game might not even run' warning when I open it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Sméagol: His Eye sees all, they says. All lands and mountains. It might see Baggins.
Suddenly, a wild Sméagol appears! 
So, going forward, we will see how the game won me over.
Gollum starts to turn away but then... a beetle flies past in a whirl of motion blur.
Gollum: Slslsl.
Both personas want to catch the bug but for different reasons.
Gollum leaps for the bug...
...and pitches down the side of the hill in a whirl of motion blur
Second Orc: Ghost, spy, don't matter.
STINKER: Hide!
After this cutscene we are teleported into some hidey-grass with an objective to follow the two orcs that just spotted us.
New Objective: Follow the orcs!
STINKER: Follow, but quiet. Stay in the shadows.
SLINKER: What about the bird?
STINKER: Forget birds!
(i wont forget the bird)
Second Orc: I'm telling you, it was that little one. Shelob's spider-friend. Haven't seen it for years. I hoped her Ladyship had sucked it dry.
First Orc: Shouldn't report it. It's always trouble. Then they send their bloodhounds, and that's never fun.
The orcs go through this gate, we slip around via ledge-scoot, and continue following the orcs via a path above them on the mountan.
Second Orc: Open up.
Third Orc: Who's there?
Second Orc: Who do you think? Open up!
The dead orc collapses into a non-interactible heap. We cannot eat him.
We're now learning how to throw rocks. having played this before, I went up to the rock before I was supposed to, which is why I am blocked from picking it up
STINKER: Sssss. Wants to light fires, does it? Clever Orc.
SLINKER: The other one! He'll see us!
STINKER: We needs a stone!
First Orc: Maggakh?
STINKER: Hit the lantern! Hit the light!
First Orc: Ach! I don't like this. She's lurking somewhere.
First Orc: [with convincing terror] No! Aaah! Aaah!
(the game can stop telling me to throw a stone at the lantern aaaany time now)
First Orc: [with very convincing terror] Maggakh! Help!
oh no he's still alive
First Orc: No! Aaah! Aaah!
To be entirely fair to Gollum, he has a reasonable belief that he needs to kill these two orcs out of self-defense in order to keep from getting caught by Sauron. But it's not a tidy or nice thing and he doesn't have any qualms at all. I mean look at his friggin' face when Shelob is devouring that totally innocent orc up there man.
Well, nothing more to see here. Gollum shambles off.
Oh, yeah, we're still in full view of Sauron. That's unwise.
STINKER: Must get out of the light, dear.
Oh look, a random patch of flowers. This is something you don't see every day in BARREN WASTELAND HELL WORLD Mordor, so Gollum checks it out.
!!!!!!
BUG
Slinker has entirely mentally dissociated from the murders he just committed and is ready to play with a bug.
STINKER: They'll find us!
(gollum. buddy. pal. friendo. you are a 3d model so why does it look like there is green screen artifacting on your hair)
STINKER: The beetle saw us! Smash it! Smash it!
(Note: Sauron does spy with birds, but I don't recall him using insects, actual small invertebrates that cannot vocalize. Better safe than sorry?)
Now something special happens- our first Slinker v. Stinker fight!
SLINKER: Beetle wants us no harm, does it?
STINKER: Could be a spy. It could be.
SLINKER: Beetle just wants to eat pollen, perhaps.
STINKER: Pollen. Hm, yes. It hasn't been following us, has it?
SLINKER: It likes us. Look! LOOK!
(Gollum's textures rendered all the way for a brief moment. Ohh he needs a shower)
My first playthrough I got slightly different dialog here, and I don't remember if I did something different or if it was actually randomized. Slinker pointed out that the bug probably isn't a spy because the bird wasn't one, and Stinker agreed- the birds were just nesting.
These arguments can wrap up pretty fast. This first one isn't anything too special, but at other times I will try to drag these talks out with intentional wrong choices (since you're allowed one or two) and spliced-in lines from my other playthrough footage where appropriate. Gollum says the darndest things to himself.
(Fun fact: if you decide to kill the beetle, Gollum jumps at it aggressively, scaring it off, and thus fails to catch it. IIRC that version of the cutscene is much shorter. I won't show it to you because I neglected to screen record it and frankly it's not interesting enough for me to go recapture it.)
(Gollum's eyes have a pearlescent sheen when light hits them. It's a very nice touch; unfortunately the effect sometimes inappropriately extends to his eyelids.)
OH
OH A FELLBEAST
HEY WE TOTALLY SAW ONE OF THESE GUYS EARLIER
OW OOF OUCH MY SKIN
A brave stance for a man who's just lost all of the skin on the front of his body and both nipples.
(i wasn't joking)
STINKER: Gah! Hmph! ... Bah, it hurts!
SLINKER: Are they gone?
Gollum has a lil snack of mushrooms (you can see them indicated by a gray dot):
STINKER: Well done, my dear.
Consuming fungus, worms, lice and eggses will heal the horrific fractures you take while platforming because this game has fall damage. Yes it does it has fall damage.
Food healing broken bones is naturally very silly, however, this game is no sillier than nearly every other video game with healing items.
We have one final tutorial mechanic.
Pressing R will highlight nearby hostiles and let you see them through walls, useful for stealth sections. (I think we can assume this is a representation of Gollum scenting them and listening for the sounds of movement. Or we can just say ‘it’s a video game’ and not think about it.)
Anything your 'heightened senses' highlighted will stay highlighted for a short time after you return to normal view.
SLINKER: (Scared noises) The wraiths! The wraiths! He's in here! Where now? (frightened breathing) Precious... Wah!
Right I am going to give you some additional context right here, instead of waiting for you to figure it out naturally as the game shows it to you, because it changes the demeanor of Gollum's dialog significantly.
You've probably noticed all of the terms of endearment 'my love/sweet one/my dear/precious', etc. While The Hobbit does include the sentence 'he always called himself my precious', I usually get the impression that much of the time when Gollum says 'my precious' it is a verbal tic with no real meaning or intended result.
That is not true of this game. As I said before, this game goes really hard with the two personalities. This game does not go so far as to establish where these two personalities came from, what they are, why they're here, etc. That's all still one big mystery. (And it's a fantasy setting, with magic and weird stuff, so the possible explanations for this are potentially infinite.) So I have no idea whether or not Stinker is an artifact created by the Ring, an imaginary friend of sorts created by Sméagol and invested with a sort of life of his own through long years of LARPing as him, or whether he was always like that and Gollum's psyche should actually be considered to be comprised of two separate people who were somehow both born in the same body and both have equal rights to exist in it. One interesting thing that you don't usually see with this type of character is that Slinker and Stinker never seem to take issue with sharing a corporeal form. Each of them seems comfortable with the idea that there is just another guy in his head with him (and it's often unclear to me who is 'steering'). Of course, they've have 500+ years to hash these thing
Since the game does not answer any of those questions, I'm just going to drop it and move on.
What is clear is that not only do the two personalities talk to each other, they have a little bit of a relationship dynamic. And they call out to one another.
That was a roundabout way of saying that when Slinker cries out 'Precious', he's not talking about the Ring and it's not a meaningless verbal habit, and he's also not strictly talking to himself in the usual sense; he is calling out to Stinker (though he doesn't always reply). Meanwhile, Stinker uses a whole range of pet terms for Slinker, that mostly seem calculated to soothe, placate, console, or just make him shut up. So when you see a 'my precious' or anything in that vein, he's talking to his other self and seems to actually be trying to communicate something to him.
Okay back to Ringwraiths.
![]()
Gollum has proven by now that he's hard to catch (being small and weak does not make him easier to catch. have you ever tried to catch a cat), so 3 Nazgul vs. one Gollum is not at all unreasonable if you really want to keep ahold of him.
However it does look a bit silly to see 3 sith vs. 1 baby.
We're suddenly back in Mirkwood.
Wizard: Look at me.
That was a sneak peek at one of the best characters in the game, but we won't see her again for several hours, so never mind that now.
Wizard: Look at me!
HIS VOICE: Nazg-sishi! Nazg urdgasul!
Wizard: What did you tell him?
STINKER: Nothing! Nothing! We swears! We sweaaars!
Gollum is completely silent here.
The books do not describe exactly what Gollum told Sauron:
We now enter Barad-Dur...
..And that was the end of Chapter 1!
As I said at the beginning of this post, Chapter 1 is really more of a prologue. We'll be getting into Game for real in the next update, and seeing more of its usual tone and methods, plus we'll start meeting the characters the devs invented for this game.
Chapter 1: The Wraith, or: The One Who Simply Walked Into Mordor
...or rather, crawled.
I did some experimenting with the chapter select, and found that the game didn't seem to reflect me changing my mind about story-changing decisions after the fact. I did a lot of things in my last playthrough that I don't want to have in this one, so...
...sadly this also deletes all my collectibles :'( I guess Bilbo Baggins stole them.
Gollum: Without me, eyes are marbles, no darkness they see.
Gollum: Faces look garbled, no flurry they feel.
...sadly this also deletes all my collectibles :'( I guess Bilbo Baggins stole them.
Chapter 1 is a little more like an intro/prologue than a part of the story proper. It includes scene-setting and a tutorial.
It’s also a fantastic introduction to what this game does right & what it does wrong. The Lord of the Rings™ Gollum™ starts off by showing you some of the coolest storytelling tricks it has to offer. At the same time, it also frontloads its garbage and in many ways it makes the worst first impression possible. You will see what I mean almost immediately.
We start off by launching right into a cutscene. The game starts in media res.
Please note: Not all of the in-game subtitles accompany an interesting screenshot (this will become more and more true in gameplay segments and other less cinematic cutscenes), so I have more lines written out in the text than are in the images. You'll miss some dialog if you only look at the screenshots and not my captions.
Ok, let's get right into it. Enjoy:
Please note: Not all of the in-game subtitles accompany an interesting screenshot (this will become more and more true in gameplay segments and other less cinematic cutscenes), so I have more lines written out in the text than are in the images. You'll miss some dialog if you only look at the screenshots and not my captions.
Ok, let's get right into it. Enjoy:
Gollum: Without me, eyes are marbles, no darkness they see.
Gollum: Faces look garbled, no flurry they feel.
Gollum: No breath, no cheer, death not to fear.
Gollum: Time is not spent, roses has no scent.
Gollum: At nothing you can marvel without me.
Sméagol: But it wasn't roses, my precious. Not roses. Lilies... not lilies. Not roses. Which one was it, precious?
(it's a little unclear in screencaps: this next image is a reflection in a puddle)
Ugly naked man?
Gollum the ugly naked man!!!
This won't come up again for a while: Gollum's mutterings just now were him pondering a childhood riddle from years and YEARS ago. The funny thing about it is we're never going to hear what the answer to the riddle was and Gollum doesn't seem to care. He's hung up on the flower thing.
Gollum: Quiet! Someone's coming.
Wizard: An old man with a stick and a hat and a cage upon his back...
Elvenking: We may provide you with a cart. There is no hope for him, I fear. The creature is lost.
(This was unclear to me the first couple times I saw this exchange, so I am going to laboriously explain it. We're jumping into a conversation that was started somewhere out of our/Gollum's heairng: Thranduil doesn't want Gollum to be here, for some reason! He's insinuating that Gandalf should take him away, and Gandalf's line here is an oblique way of saying 'Thranduil, I have no house. They call me the Grey Pilgrim because I don't live anywhere. do you expect me to piggyback him around in a birdcage for the rest of my life or something??')
Wizard: Well, let's see how he responds to some light.
This encounter we're seeing is directly out of Fellowship of the Ring, though of course it's not depicted directly there, just recounted by Gandalf:
'You have seen Gollum?' exclaimed Frodo in amazement.
'Yes. The obvious thing to do, of course, if one could. I tried long ago; but I have managed it at last. [...] What I have told you [Sméagol's life story & how he found the Ring] is what Gollum was willing to tell - though not, of course, in the way I have reported it. Gollum is a liar, and you have to sift his words.
- J. R. R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
By the way, do you see how grainy the lighting is? That's not a capture issue- it's the game. It actually looks better in the screenshots because they got ever so slightly blurred.
Funny thing: This is the only place in the entire game where I get this problem with the lighting. In the FIRST FEW SECONDS of the game. You can refund a game until you get 2 hours in... and this game puts some uniquely borked visual effects in the first two minutes. The audacity!
Elvenking: Someone tortured him. Long before the Dunadan found him.
Elvenking: Darkness grows beyond our borders. My people are growing anxious. We cannot let this evil linger among us, Gandalf.
I like this Thranduil's fashion sense but I'm not so sure about his face. He looks weirdly old, for an ageless immortal being.
I also like this sort of quirky anime-style design for Gandalf. Unfortunately, you won't see it for a while, but HIS face is just awful. Such a shame. It’s also a shame that this is one of the first models you see and you're going to get a closeup.
Elvenking: We believe that he went to Mordor.
Wizard: That's what I feared. What did he hope to find, I wonder.
Wizard: That's what I feared. What did he hope to find, I wonder.
Wizard: Leave us. I want to hear what he has to say.
...this game is very frustrating. I really like this color palette, the composition, the lighting. It's just that... pesky 3d rendering.
I swear there is a masterpiece hidden in this game that no one will ever see. I'm sane, by the way.
The screen fades to black, and we see some logos for the companies that made this game come to be (Daedalic Entertainment, Nacon, and Middle-Earth Enterprises), while the conversation continues.
Wizard (off): Why don't we start with your name?
Gollum (off): (Noises [as in, not speech]) Gollum, gollum.
Wizard (off): [calmly] Your real name. Not the one others have given you.
This makes perfect sense in context and I'm fairly certain Gandalf is gently forestalling any attempt for Gollum to be coy and give out an alias, rather than actually taking the noise as an attempt to give his name.
But since Gollum's noises don't appear to be voluntary this is also kind of like if someone asked for your name and you sneezed and he said 'now, now. we both know that's not your name.'
[There is a long, awkward silence where Gollum does not give his name.]
Wizard (off): Very well. Let us try someone else's name then. Bilbo Baggins.
Gollum (off): (Hisses)
We abruptly switch over to some 2d ink art. I love this kind of art and I'd love to see more of this, and it pains me to tell you that this never comes back in the game (although- well, nah. that would be telling.) Enjoy it while you've got it.
Wizard (off) Yes. You remember him.
Wizard(off): He found you. More than sixty years ago.
Wizard (off) Deep underneath the roots of the Misty Mountains.
Wizard(off) He took something from you.
Gollum(off) Thieef!
Wizard(off) A ring.
Gollum(off) My Precioussss.
This is important. Book Gollum and Movie Gollum are very, very psychologically different.
:|
Very different…
I am not opposed to adaptational changes, even if the source material was incredibly good at being what it was. Different mediums require different approaches.
I do, however, find book!gollum vs. movie!gollum somewhat personally disappointing. The movie version seems to have been dumbed down in more than one sense in order to be more palatable to an audience. On one hand, this decision seems to have been the right one for making an understandable visual adaptation of a complex story and I'm not sure I could in good conscience tell them to do it differently! On the other hand, the difference is such that I feel like I'm not seeing the character I know from the books on the screen at all. This goes way beyond whatever visual I was picturing when I read the books! Every scene that established his character in the books is either different, truncated, or *grits teeth* missing.
Very different…
I am not opposed to adaptational changes, even if the source material was incredibly good at being what it was. Different mediums require different approaches.
I do, however, find book!gollum vs. movie!gollum somewhat personally disappointing. The movie version seems to have been dumbed down in more than one sense in order to be more palatable to an audience. On one hand, this decision seems to have been the right one for making an understandable visual adaptation of a complex story and I'm not sure I could in good conscience tell them to do it differently! On the other hand, the difference is such that I feel like I'm not seeing the character I know from the books on the screen at all. This goes way beyond whatever visual I was picturing when I read the books! Every scene that established his character in the books is either different, truncated, or *grits teeth* missing.
And unfortunately I also think the changes to Gollum had a negative impact on some pivotal scenes with Sam and Frodo (because he's their main villain and he's been nerfed). That gets to the core of the story and is a much more egregious offense than just failing to depict my frog waifu. And I also find it disappointing that the movie version of LOTR is the only version most people seem to know.
So, regardless of any licensing problems that may or may not have been involved: basing a character study around Gollum on the books, instead of the PJ movies, is 110% the correct decision.
let me put it this way. Would you base a Tom Bombadil game on the movies??? no you would not
Wizard (off):You were looking for it... weren't you?
Gollum(off): (Muttering)
Wizard(off): You left your home in the mountains.
Wizard(off) Worming your way down the hills, always hiding from the moon.
Wizard(off): You followed the Hobbit's trace, all the way to the Lonely Mountain.
Wizard(off): But then you stopped and turned south. Why?
Gollum(off): Ss, ss.
Wizard(off): Something must have drawn you away. A voice calling you to the Land of Shadows?
Gollum(off): [sounding choked and distressed] Leave us alone!
Wizard(off): Whispering your name in your dreams...
Gollum(off): Not listening!
The screen fades to black with some soft ominous music, and the title comes up.
Fade to black again.
Wizard (off): So once again: What is your name?
Gollum (off): [choked] Ss. Ssssssssméagol.
Wizard (off): Very well, Sméagol.
No it's Ssssssssméagol
Wizard (off): Now let us start at the beginning.
We finally enter the game proper, with a loading screen. I will show you all of the loading screens because they include little text blurbs to orient you to time & place within your current level. The game does a lot of tricksy hidden loading during cutscenes, dialog, etc. and (at least if you have plenty of RAM) true loading screens usually only appear at places where they feel appropriate for story pacing.
The Shadow Mountains
For years, Gollum had dwelled in the Mountains of Cirith Ungol, hiding from Orcs, wraiths, and from her... The giant spider he feared and worshipped.
I don't recall the movies clarifying the relationship between Gollum and Bigge Spyder. The books mention that he knew her for some time and did, indeed, worship her. The game is politely re-establishing this for you so you are aware of this salient fact whether you read the books or not.
Note: the bird sailing in here mirrors the bird sailing in at the beginning of the inked flashback cutscene we just saw, visually tying it into the 'here and now' (we are actually entering the game proper at a point some years in the past from this interrogation that is concurrently happening in the story, a pacing choice which flows really well in the game, but sounds weird when I talk about it.)
A small figure drops down into the frame.
Gollum: Pfah! Gollum! [noises- not speech]
He's making a lot of additional sniffling/coughing/grunting noises that are not subtitled. He sounds frustrated.
The game does a dramatic intro on Gollum here as we finally see him in full view out of the shadows. This is Gollum in his natural environment, alone with himself, and being who he really is, instead of in captivity and desperately lying to a wizard. The reveal is well paced, and well executed, and would... just... be a little bitty bit more effective if this visual take on Gollum was more impressive to behold.
Allow me to digress a moment to talk about the eponymous Noise, since it's being showcased at the moment.
The 'gollum' sound is a small auditory detail, but it's also the source for the name of the character and a pretty distinctive trait. So I find it interesting how basically no one does it right.
The noise is described as a swallowing or gobbling sound, and is also compared to a sob. We are actually not told why Gollum makes this noise, or whether it's voluntary, but the way it's thrown into his dialog (usually correlating with stress or hunger) seems to imply it is not voluntary. Here's Tolkien's rendition. (the audio is quiet and you might have to turn it up if you listen to this.) Note: This is a weird noise and I'm not implying that I think anyone else has to do this. And yet, Tolkien probably knew what the intention was for the character's sound
The Rankin-Bass and Ralph Bakshi versions had him just... saying the nonsense word 'gollum' at random intervals.
The Peter Jackson movies made it into a retching noise. This is better than just saying it, because now it's an involuntary noise. However you may notice that retching is not the same as swallowing and cannot be mistaken for a sob. It changes the character. It's a small change and a small detail, but- it is a change. I keep bringing up that the original noise was something like a compulsive sob. There was an eerieness to it that's not conveyed by hairball noises.
The game seems to be trying to strike a happy medium between evoking the sound from the movies a little bit while also making it more believable as 'gulping' and not sounding quite as crazy as what Tolkien did. It's also embedded in with a bunch of other sniffles and coughs and general 'I am having a bad time' sounds. It's also clearly parseable as 'gollum' while still sounding like an involuntary noise and not a spoken word. I'm giving it a six out of ten.
Wizard(off): But then you stopped and turned south. Why?
Gollum(off): Ss, ss.
Wizard(off): Something must have drawn you away. A voice calling you to the Land of Shadows?
Gollum(off): [sounding choked and distressed] Leave us alone!
Wizard(off): Whispering your name in your dreams...
Gollum(off): Not listening!
The screen fades to black with some soft ominous music, and the title comes up.
Fade to black again.
Wizard (off): So once again: What is your name?
Gollum (off): [choked] Ss. Ssssssssméagol.
Wizard (off): Very well, Sméagol.
No it's Ssssssssméagol
Wizard (off): Now let us start at the beginning.
We finally enter the game proper, with a loading screen. I will show you all of the loading screens because they include little text blurbs to orient you to time & place within your current level. The game does a lot of tricksy hidden loading during cutscenes, dialog, etc. and (at least if you have plenty of RAM) true loading screens usually only appear at places where they feel appropriate for story pacing.
The Shadow Mountains
For years, Gollum had dwelled in the Mountains of Cirith Ungol, hiding from Orcs, wraiths, and from her... The giant spider he feared and worshipped.
I don't recall the movies clarifying the relationship between Gollum and Bigge Spyder. The books mention that he knew her for some time and did, indeed, worship her. The game is politely re-establishing this for you so you are aware of this salient fact whether you read the books or not.
Note: the bird sailing in here mirrors the bird sailing in at the beginning of the inked flashback cutscene we just saw, visually tying it into the 'here and now' (we are actually entering the game proper at a point some years in the past from this interrogation that is concurrently happening in the story, a pacing choice which flows really well in the game, but sounds weird when I talk about it.)
A small figure drops down into the frame.
Gollum: Pfah! Gollum! [noises- not speech]
He's making a lot of additional sniffling/coughing/grunting noises that are not subtitled. He sounds frustrated.
The game does a dramatic intro on Gollum here as we finally see him in full view out of the shadows. This is Gollum in his natural environment, alone with himself, and being who he really is, instead of in captivity and desperately lying to a wizard. The reveal is well paced, and well executed, and would... just... be a little bitty bit more effective if this visual take on Gollum was more impressive to behold.
Allow me to digress a moment to talk about the eponymous Noise, since it's being showcased at the moment.
The 'gollum' sound is a small auditory detail, but it's also the source for the name of the character and a pretty distinctive trait. So I find it interesting how basically no one does it right.
The noise is described as a swallowing or gobbling sound, and is also compared to a sob. We are actually not told why Gollum makes this noise, or whether it's voluntary, but the way it's thrown into his dialog (usually correlating with stress or hunger) seems to imply it is not voluntary. Here's Tolkien's rendition. (the audio is quiet and you might have to turn it up if you listen to this.) Note: This is a weird noise and I'm not implying that I think anyone else has to do this. And yet, Tolkien probably knew what the intention was for the character's sound
The Rankin-Bass and Ralph Bakshi versions had him just... saying the nonsense word 'gollum' at random intervals.
The Peter Jackson movies made it into a retching noise. This is better than just saying it, because now it's an involuntary noise. However you may notice that retching is not the same as swallowing and cannot be mistaken for a sob. It changes the character. It's a small change and a small detail, but- it is a change. I keep bringing up that the original noise was something like a compulsive sob. There was an eerieness to it that's not conveyed by hairball noises.
The game seems to be trying to strike a happy medium between evoking the sound from the movies a little bit while also making it more believable as 'gulping' and not sounding quite as crazy as what Tolkien did. It's also embedded in with a bunch of other sniffles and coughs and general 'I am having a bad time' sounds. It's also clearly parseable as 'gollum' while still sounding like an involuntary noise and not a spoken word. I'm giving it a six out of ten.
We are now controlling Gollum! The preceding cutscenes took roughly 5 minutes and were skippable. Just hold the spacebar and you can skip any cutscene at any time. (Certain cutscenes are not pre-rendered and are advanceable by tapping the spacebar instead.) If you want to skip story segments on your first playthrough, you should not be playing this game; skipping cutscenes is pretty useful for collectible-hunting or an LP though.
Here's our starting area.
Chapter One: The Wraith
Chapter One: The WraithNew Objective: Day is near. Go back to your cave!
Gollum: Nothing! Nothing! Must go back hungry again!
Gollum: Curse this land! Curse it! Curse it!
current mood:
And here's our first good look at an explorable/interactible area.
I'm a big fan of the environmental design in this game. It suffers from lack of visual polish and is occasionally marred by Gollum's randomly placed playground equipment, but the color palettes and the visual direction appeal to me a lot. Like the rest of the visuals, it’s clear some creativity and care went into this and the technical side didn’t always bear it out to its full potential, but the environmental modeling is more successful than the character modeling.
This caves area walks a good balance between being bleak and lonesome while still being pleasing to the eye. The rain's a nice moody touch.
I think most of the environments have a weird, lonely beauty to them, and exploring them- combined with the music, which is quiet and contemplative during exploration/platforming segments- gets across the poignancy of being this isolated unique existence traveling through a fantastical semi-post-apocalyptic world, climbing up into places you're not supposed to go and seeing things you're not supposed to see. This take on Middle Earth is dreamy, intricate, surreal and a little sad. It feels like the right aesthetic and the right tone for this character in this setting.
So what's wrong with this area?
Well, you may have heard about this game having performance issues. Overall, mostly, it's running great for me... with the exception of certain areas that appear to be poorly optimized.
And unfortunately, one of the worst ones is this starting area, where you begin the game. Also known as: the worst place your game can run poorly, because people will boot it up, see the performance problems immediately, think the whole game is like that (or think it's not worth playing through the trouble spots), and return it.
That's a shame.
We will return to this area later in the game and have the same issues again, which is also a shame.
Now, dear reader, you will not have to vicariously experience any lagging or stuttering, because this is a screenshot LP. However, I have dynamic resolution and texture streaming turned on to make things easier on myself. What this appears to do is make my game run mostly-smoothly at the expense of adjusting the graphics- and occasionally tanking the graphics right down the toilet to Sims 2 level. This is also a shame, especially to happen right out of the gate. Some of these beginning area screenshots will look dreadful, I'm afraid. The visuals are not perfect but the whole game doesn't look as bad as this. I swear!!! I swear on the Precious!!!!
None of these issues impede the unceasing Rant. (either Gollum's rant or my rant)
Gollum: Tomorrow, my dear. Tomorrow, we finds something nice.
Gollum has three moods: HUNGRY, ANGRY, and STRANGELY DISINGENUOUS SELF-REASSURANCE.
If you notice a little hint of mouth movement, yes, Gollum is speaking aloud and has speech animations for all of this. This is external monologue. If you pan the camera around, you can watch him talk.
Gollum: And up... and up again.
We are also learning Gollum's moveset. He jump, he climb. He fall off wall, he ragdoll, he die all the time. I will not be showing you my many failures and retries, which 90% of the time have nothing to do with the game and everything to do with my personal difficulties in judging distances, both in 3d modeled areas and in real life.
Wizard (OFF): The Mountains of Shadow? That is where you were hiding?
Gollum(OFF): [distraught] Psss. Gah! Musn't ask. Why is it asking us questions? Why?
Wizard(OFF): You know why.
In the future, in a cell in Mirkwood, Gandalf keeps trying to yank information out of a snarling, whinging, unhelpful Gollum. There's an intriguing juxtaposition between future!Mirkwood!Gollum's closemouthedness and lying, and Gollum in his natural environment all on his lonesome. The voice actor makes Mirkwood!Gollum sound stilted and uncomfortable and just on the verge of being unable to string a sentence together, while the version we're controlling is keeping up an easygoing patter that makes it obvious just how talkative he can be when he's not being interrogated. I think it makes a nice introduction to the character and conveys a lot about him, both blatantly and on a more subtle level. I'm not sure how this comes across to someone who's less familiar with the character from the books (because I cannot turn off the part of my brain that recognizes things), but it quickly sold me on this being a close match to the character I knew from the books and wanted to see, instead of a less interesting Flanderization.
Gollum: Tomorrow, my dear. Tomorrow, we finds something nice.
Gollum has three moods: HUNGRY, ANGRY, and STRANGELY DISINGENUOUS SELF-REASSURANCE.
If you notice a little hint of mouth movement, yes, Gollum is speaking aloud and has speech animations for all of this. This is external monologue. If you pan the camera around, you can watch him talk.
Gollum: And up... and up again.
We are also learning Gollum's moveset. He jump, he climb. He fall off wall, he ragdoll, he die all the time. I will not be showing you my many failures and retries, which 90% of the time have nothing to do with the game and everything to do with my personal difficulties in judging distances, both in 3d modeled areas and in real life.
They kept showing this ledge-scoot move in the promotional material and I thought it looked stupid. It might still look stupid in footage or screenshots, but I find it that using the wall ledges feels fun, satisfying and natural when I'm actually playing the game. I suppose it helps that I'm looking at the environment and where I'm moving to next, rather than peering at Gollum's awkward, starved-child body flailing around in a gif on Twitter. (To be fair: he should look awkward doing this, he is almost 600 years old and crawling up walls in raggedy underwear.)
Wizard (OFF): The Mountains of Shadow? That is where you were hiding?
Gollum(OFF): [distraught] Psss. Gah! Musn't ask. Why is it asking us questions? Why?
Wizard(OFF): You know why.
In the future, in a cell in Mirkwood, Gandalf keeps trying to yank information out of a snarling, whinging, unhelpful Gollum. There's an intriguing juxtaposition between future!Mirkwood!Gollum's closemouthedness and lying, and Gollum in his natural environment all on his lonesome. The voice actor makes Mirkwood!Gollum sound stilted and uncomfortable and just on the verge of being unable to string a sentence together, while the version we're controlling is keeping up an easygoing patter that makes it obvious just how talkative he can be when he's not being interrogated. I think it makes a nice introduction to the character and conveys a lot about him, both blatantly and on a more subtle level. I'm not sure how this comes across to someone who's less familiar with the character from the books (because I cannot turn off the part of my brain that recognizes things), but it quickly sold me on this being a close match to the character I knew from the books and wanted to see, instead of a less interesting Flanderization.
Our first climbing wall. Climbable walls will look different in differently styled areas. Some of them look more natural than others. This one looks fine.
Gollum: [facing a cavernous gap and sounding less than thrilled] It's the long jump again, my precious. Come, we has done it many times.
Gollum(OFF): Shadow Mountains. Yes! That's how they called it, the Orcses did.
Wizard(OFF): So you talked to the Orcs?
Gollum(OFF): [furious] Never! [ingratiating] But we has sharp ears, and we listens.
Gollum: No Baggins. No Precious. And the Eye! It's always watching!
We toddle into a mini-cutscene.
Gollum: [facing a cavernous gap and sounding less than thrilled] It's the long jump again, my precious. Come, we has done it many times.
Gollum(OFF): Shadow Mountains. Yes! That's how they called it, the Orcses did.
Wizard(OFF): So you talked to the Orcs?
Gollum(OFF): [furious] Never! [ingratiating] But we has sharp ears, and we listens.
Gollum: No Baggins. No Precious. And the Eye! It's always watching!
We toddle into a mini-cutscene.
Fellbeast[not subtitled in-game]: (HIDEOUS SHRIEKING)
It's a pretty derpy facial expression but I think I would make the same face if a fellbeast popped up two inches away from me.
Gollum: Come! The cave. We're almost there.
There's a little banner in this tree. It's not commented on, but we later see that Gollum marks trails to help him navigate, so he could have been the one to put this here. (It could also have been the orc that used the cave previously.) also YES this is what I was talking about when I said the texture streaming/dynamic resolution would lead to some suboptimal visuals YES this looks like trash YES it does
I misunderstood 'no foothold' when I first saw it & thought it meant no ground underneath us. Actually, what this means should be obvious to anyone with two brain cells: Gollum has gone from clinging to the wall with his feet to hanging solely supported by his skinny little arms. A 'foothold' means a foothold on the wall.
Gollum(off): Orc lived there, yes. Hiding from the Great Eye. We thinks. Long gone, when we came, the nasty Orc. Long dead.
We have now reached the cave.
Gollum's cave of gloom. I'm linking the song again
We get to explore Sméagol's living environment while occasionally Future!Gandalf continues the interrogation.
I really enjoy this section. This is a place where the game not only does some cool storytelling, but it makes good use of the interactive medium to do it. Janky modeling aside.
We get to explore Sméagol's living environment while occasionally Future!Gandalf continues the interrogation.
I really enjoy this section. This is a place where the game not only does some cool storytelling, but it makes good use of the interactive medium to do it. Janky modeling aside.
Gollum has drawings on the rocks. I don't know what he used to make them, and I'm not sure we should inquire too closely.
The ancient cavedweller produces artwork that stylistically resembles paleolithic cave art! I'm... not entirely sure what all of this is meant to depict, but I think I see orcs and a boat. I think that's also a swirly two-headed snake?
Wizard(OFF): You must have had friends once. A family.
Gollum(OFF): They kicked us! Cast us out. Curse them all! Curse them! It WAS our birthday. Yes, it was!
Wizard(OFF):Your birthday?
Gollum: It was ours! Our Precious. My birthday present. It came to me on my birthday. [This looks like it is intended to be labeled with OFF, but as you can see in the screenshot, it isn't)
Wizard(OFF): So I've heard.
Gollum(OFF): Orcs couldn't see us! No one could see us! Not even nasty wizards!
Wizard(OFF): How did you find it? Your Precious?
Gollum(OFF): Gnaa! Nasty light! Sméagol wants to sleep!
Wizard(OFF): He cannot sleep now. But I shall dim the light for you.
I find that dialog interesting because it sounds like Gollum can't articulate what's so distressing about the light and ends up desperately saying 'he wants to sleep'. This is ridiculous, but Gandalf apparently infers that he's in real physical distress and is as accommodating as is appropriate.
Wizard(OFF): So I've heard.
Gollum(OFF): Orcs couldn't see us! No one could see us! Not even nasty wizards!
Wizard(OFF): How did you find it? Your Precious?
Gollum(OFF): Gnaa! Nasty light! Sméagol wants to sleep!
Wizard(OFF): He cannot sleep now. But I shall dim the light for you.
I find that dialog interesting because it sounds like Gollum can't articulate what's so distressing about the light and ends up desperately saying 'he wants to sleep'. This is ridiculous, but Gandalf apparently infers that he's in real physical distress and is as accommodating as is appropriate.
Here are the remains of that orc that was totally already gone when we got here.
Gollum: No nice friend, was he, precious? Not tricksing us now, is he, hm? No. No. Not anymore.
The subtitles don't convey his tone of voice. Gollum is practically purring over whatever he did to this orc.
Some of what I'm most curious about has no voice line. If you read through the collections showcase in this post, you may recall that Gollum likes to pick up string and bones. This is, apparently, what he’s using them for:
(He even built himself a little ladder so he could get up there and work on it, see that?)
(He even built himself a little ladder so he could get up there and work on it, see that?)
Gollum: (Annoyed noise) What's the noise?
(shut up game I am enjoying my house tour)
The game is triggering the next tutorial objective. You don't have to go and look at it until you're ready. You'll just occasionally hear bird noises and see a quest marker. (I shuffled these screenshots into an order that suited me better, which is why you see the quest marker on the orc skull image too)
Anyway, we were marveling over precious' found object art. I've definitely seen worse/less interesting sculptures. Who would win: Sméagol's fish mobile, which was probably lovingly crafted out of the remains of his own kills over a period of several weeks, or bigge spun?
(shut up game I am enjoying my house tour)
The game is triggering the next tutorial objective. You don't have to go and look at it until you're ready. You'll just occasionally hear bird noises and see a quest marker. (I shuffled these screenshots into an order that suited me better, which is why you see the quest marker on the orc skull image too)
Anyway, we were marveling over precious' found object art. I've definitely seen worse/less interesting sculptures. Who would win: Sméagol's fish mobile, which was probably lovingly crafted out of the remains of his own kills over a period of several weeks, or bigge spun?
Messy, messy, messy!
Rock friend.
Gollum: Buck's horn... bird's foot... All the same, sweet one. Just names in a stupid song.
Gollum's tone of voice here (and in many other places) has a weird, harried sound as if he is reassuring an ornery spoiled child that probably isn't listening and will make the same complaint again in two minutes. How Odd. There Is No One Else Here.
I made a 'press f to worship big spider' joke before the game came out, I was so close. It's press Q to worship big spider.
Rock friend.
Gollum: Buck's horn... bird's foot... All the same, sweet one. Just names in a stupid song.
Gollum's tone of voice here (and in many other places) has a weird, harried sound as if he is reassuring an ornery spoiled child that probably isn't listening and will make the same complaint again in two minutes. How Odd. There Is No One Else Here.
I made a 'press f to worship big spider' joke before the game came out, I was so close. It's press Q to worship big spider.
The devs want to make sure you know the spider thing is relevant so you get special camera angles for this (I'm not rotating the camera here)
Gollum: Perhaps she helps us now, the great spider. Perhaps. We brought her beasts to eat, yes? And crunchy Orcses? ...But she doesn't like them much.
Gollum: And if she's not happy? What does she do then, my love? Wraps us all up, like spindles. No, not through her tunnels, not yet. Must bring her nicer things than Orcses.
I don't know what the drawing is here I'm sorry he's bad at art
Tucked away behind the rocks where I didn't find it the first time I visited this area, there is:
Gollum: Perhaps she helps us now, the great spider. Perhaps. We brought her beasts to eat, yes? And crunchy Orcses? ...But she doesn't like them much.
Gollum: And if she's not happy? What does she do then, my love? Wraps us all up, like spindles. No, not through her tunnels, not yet. Must bring her nicer things than Orcses.
I don't know what the drawing is here I'm sorry he's bad at art
Tucked away behind the rocks where I didn't find it the first time I visited this area, there is:
...what looks like Gollum's sleeping area.
I have decided to be very honest in this let's play, so I will confess that, although sleeping in a slimy straw bed is no better than Gollum deserves, something about this scummy little nook triggers my 'Now that I see him I do pity him' response. I mean, I look at this and picture this little naked hobbit curled up in the straw... in the dark... alone... with his spider shrine and his orc skull.
We exit through this tunnel... oh the red streaks? There's a mechanic that can give you a hint where to go. I didn't need to know where to go, but this mechanic also highlights interactible objects so I turned it on in case there was something I missed. We'll get a proper intro to this later.
Wizard(OFF): So you never left that tunnel?
Gollum(OFF): [while leaving tunnel] Never!
Wizard(OFF): And no one ever saw you?
Gollum(OFF): No one.
New Objective: Hunt the spy!
We're charging down this bird. Now- Middle-Earth does have birds that spy for Sauron. We'll see some birds later on that are confirmed Mordor spies. At this point in the game, we haven't seen them yet, and we never hear that THIS type of bird spies. Gollum could be paranoid, but to be honest, in his situation I think most reasonable people would be.
Gollum: Ssss. Nasty bird. It watches us! It spies on us! Catch it! Grab it! Throttle it!
That is not a different type of climbing wall. That's the bramble-type one we saw earlier but now the textures are destroyed. How does this area work with texture streaming? Fine! responsive. Ugly. How was it before I turned on texture streaming? Horrible, thanks for asking.
You just run at the wall full tilt. Gollum will automatically latch onto the wall-crawling path, scrabble up it at top speed while making panic noises and at the top he'll grab a ledge if there is one, or drop back down if there isn’t one
Wheeeeeee!
This is another move I started to really enjoy once I got the hang of it.
Zoom!
Sideways wall running works like straight-ahead wall running but sometimes runs into minor issues where he doesn't go into the move because you hit the wall at the wrong angle. Or, well, because I misjudge the angle. (This problem may actually be the game, though. Gollum gets hung up on level geometry sometimes, he's just so old and tiny!)
Gollum: Filthy little spy. It will tell the wraiths and squeal on us! Dirty little spy. Squeeze it, yes, squeeze the croakser! And then we eats! Gollum! Gollum!
:3c it's a small detail but I do appreciate that the game noticed that Gollum tends to make that noise when he's thinking about food (food that is presently still alive)
There are two prompts of note in this image:
F to jump backwards
E to drop
The 'jump backwards' prompt usually only appears when there is a valid target that your jump trajectory will safely take you to. Usually. I learned to check for myself first. <_<
For some mysterious reason, E-to-drop appears every time you're clinging to something, constantly, throughout the entire game. You'll be seeing a lot of it. 99% of the time when you see it, there is a bottomless death pit below me. DISREGARD.
Suddenly we hear Orcish voices ahead.
Orc: He's alive!
Orc Captain: Of course he's alive, you scum! Did they breed you in a crate? Her Ladyship just gave him a sweet little kiss.
Gollum: Cautious now. Less speed. Orcs mustn't see us.
Orc Captain: There, see? Right on his neck.
We're hiding in the grass now. Gollum's model turns to a silhouetted version when he's in a 'hidden from view' spot, like tall grass, as here, or shadowed areas. Enemies can't hear us if we crouch-crawl, but Gollum's normal walk produces a flappy-feet sound that draws attention.
Orc: Kissed him, eh?
Orc Captain: Probably forgot about him, or he'd be off to her larder. Lady doesn't care too much for our sweet flesh and bones.
Orc: Isn't that Ufthak?
Orc Captain: It IS Ufthak! In some pretty new silk! What's the plan, Ufthak? Skip the night shift?
Orc: Shouldn't we cut him loose, Captain Shagrat?
Orc Captain: Leave him hanging, you foolish scum! No good interfering with her Ladyship's affairs.
Orc: What if the Lady's still around?
Orc Captain: Go a few steps into the cave. When you hear something, you shout and stand your ground.
(he actually went into the cave...)
Orc: Brr. Hate night watch. Ufthak's lucky. He's warm.
Orc Captain: You want to swap places with him?
Enough of that- back to chasing the bird:
- suddenly we pass by more orcs.
Gollum: Wah!
First Orc: Stop! Get him!
Gollum: Wah!
First Orc: Stop! Get him!
We book it and enter a cutscene:
.
Second Orc: Back to the tunnel! Come on!
must've been the wind
Gollum: They left!
First Orc: What was that?
We have control again and are climbing a wall well away from where the Orcs can see us.
Wizard(OFF): And that's how far you ever went into Mordor?
Gollum(OFF): We never, never left the clouds. Why is it asking us?
New Objective: Catch the birds!
Gollum: There it is, the spy! Two of them. Two little croaksers.
(Gollum sounds pleased. Prey!)
The bird we've chasing has returned to its nest, where there's another bird.
Gollum makes a grab and the birds fly away in a whirl of motion blur.
Gollum (not subtitled): [angry noise]
(this was in the content warnings, don't get mad)
Gollum: Sss. Climbed up too high, didn't we, precious? Not safe here. HE mustn't see us. No, not HIM.
By the way, Gollum's model is also subject to texture streaming. That's why he looks so baby-faced. He's missing an additional layer of wrinkles and dirt that won't load in. This is a major reason why I'm not doing a video playthrough.
FYI, my computer IS underneath the minimum recommended tech requirements, so I'm hesitant to blame the game for this. On one hand I am sure it could be better optimized, on the other hand, the game did warn me my equipment was under par. I get a 'you don't have enough vram and that game might not even run' warning when I open it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Sméagol: His Eye sees all, they says. All lands and mountains. It might see Baggins.
Suddenly, a wild Sméagol appears!
...And now we encounter a bit of an issue with doing a discussion-heavy Let's Play of the game. Bear with me for a few paragraphs.
As you are likely aware if you are reading this (otherwise, you're very confused by now), Gollum and Sméagol are two more-or-less interchangeable names for a fictional character that has existed through various forms of media, but originated, of course, in the writings of J. R. R. Tolkien.
Gollum and Sméagol are also the names of this character's dual personas. That fact matters to a greater or lesser degree depending on the iteration of the character in question. This game went really hard with the dual personas, making it a critical, near-constant story element and a game mechanic. It is impossible to talk about this game without discussing Gollum and Sméagol as different entities that co-exist in the same body and interact with one another, but for a full discussion I also need to be able to talk about the Gollum character as a whole and how he's appeared in different media.
There's going to be some imminent confusion between Gollum-or-Sméagol-the-fictional-entity and Gollum-and-Sméagol-the-personas-as-defined-by-the-game if I don't do something about it. Therefore, in the grand tradition of Samwise the Brave, friend of friends, stewer of rabbits, piggyback ride giver par excellence and co-savior of Arda, I will henceforth refer to Gollum's dual-wielding mind as Slinker and Stinker.
That frees me up to use the names Gollum and Sméagol to refer to the gestalt of the character (whether I'm referring to 'both personas together', the physical existence of the character, or his appearances in other media where this was less of a thing, which is, essentially, all of them. No other work I've seen with the character has gone as hard with this concept as this game does.)
Understood?
Great! This also lets me use fewer é's (I have to hit alt+0233 on my keyboard it's mildly inconvenient)
Now, lest we infer a criticism of the game where one is not intended, I want to point out that this confusion doesn't exist within the game, it's only a source of confusion when doing a lot of metatextual yakking about the game. The game is always clear about which persona is speaking, and also clear that the other characters in the game aren't catching on and making a differentiation between them, so the NPCs' usage of Sméagol or Gollum depends on what name was given and whether or not the NPC in question is feeling inclined to use an unkind nickname.
Okay. Now back to the program in progress:
Suddenly, a wild Slinker appears! Up until now we've only heard from Stinker.
Slinker seems to be trying to suggest that we have a friendly chat with Sauron, also known as Gorthaur the Cruel, and ask him where Baggins is. This is flagrantly unwise and Stinker rightfully denies him.
STINKER: Not him! Not him! Don't speak to him! Don't listen!
Now, here's a thing: When I read LOTR, I wasn't sold on Gollum having two personalities at all. I thought he was just a deeply troubled and conflicted person who was acting out his inner conflicts in a dramatic way (because he's Like That. but so are hobbits in general- go back to the Hobbit and take a good look at how Bilbo deals with his Took and Baggins sides, and suddenly, Gollum looks a little tiny itsy bit less outlandish). At the only point where he really sounds like he might be two people, he's using uncharacteristic speech patterns and he's sitting right next to the Ring, which mimics your inner voice and puts thoughts in your head. Hmm, suspicious.
Now, here's a thing: When I read LOTR, I wasn't sold on Gollum having two personalities at all. I thought he was just a deeply troubled and conflicted person who was acting out his inner conflicts in a dramatic way (because he's Like That. but so are hobbits in general- go back to the Hobbit and take a good look at how Bilbo deals with his Took and Baggins sides, and suddenly, Gollum looks a little tiny itsy bit less outlandish). At the only point where he really sounds like he might be two people, he's using uncharacteristic speech patterns and he's sitting right next to the Ring, which mimics your inner voice and puts thoughts in your head. Hmm, suspicious.
So, when I saw the marketing for this game coming out and it was saying 'be two people! be two people!' I was like:
'but', I said to myself, 'keep an open mind, there are a ton of incredibly interesting things that can be done with a split-mind character, and they say it won't be like the movies.' I was concerned, you see, that they would take the coward's way out with Gollum, and dramatically oversimplify him by giving him an unproblematic good boy personality that's being bullied by an evil puppy-kicking personality- which makes it easy to root for him without guilt, because then his horrible murders are technically not his fault; and that was never the character. That was never the purpose of the character.
So, going forward, we will see how the game won me over.
'Sméagol' is pronounced 'smeegle', by the way, as it usually is. Tolkien pronounced it smee-gahl with two distinct equally stressed syllables. You can hear it here where he says it like fifty times and always pronounces it that same way. I heard it and realized that when it's said that way, Sméagol ends with the same syllable that Gollum starts with and that syllable sounds like 'gall'. That might have been the intention.
Does this matter, you may ask. On one hand: no. It's translated from Westron, so his real name is Trahald there's no real 'correct' way to pronounce a word from a fictional language. Pronunciations of all words, conlang or not, change over time or with dialect/accent. This affects nothing.
On the other hand: It matters to me :'( no one's even saying the poor guy's name right! Although, to be fair, if I went through all of Tolkien's readings, I would probably find out that several other characters also have the 'wrong' names in pop culture, and it would bother me forever. It's… it’s better that I don't know.
Just like the game starting off with all of its technical issues all in one place, I am trying to frontload this kind of obsessive ranting so that you understand what you're getting into and whether or not you want to leave.
(While I was farting around getting collectibles, I checked out the German audio because I was curious. The lip-syncing animations look better with German audio, but they pronounce the name 'Smay-uh-gul', which is even more wrong.)
Gollum starts to turn away but then... a beetle flies past in a whirl of motion blur.
Gollum: Slslsl.
Both personas want to catch the bug but for different reasons.
Gollum leaps for the bug...
...and pitches down the side of the hill in a whirl of motion blur
Second Orc: Ghost, spy, don't matter.
STINKER: Hide!
After this cutscene we are teleported into some hidey-grass with an objective to follow the two orcs that just spotted us.
New Objective: Follow the orcs!
STINKER: Follow, but quiet. Stay in the shadows.
SLINKER: What about the bird?
STINKER: Forget birds!
(i wont forget the bird)
Second Orc: I'm telling you, it was that little one. Shelob's spider-friend. Haven't seen it for years. I hoped her Ladyship had sucked it dry.
First Orc: Shouldn't report it. It's always trouble. Then they send their bloodhounds, and that's never fun.
The orcs go through this gate, we slip around via ledge-scoot, and continue following the orcs via a path above them on the mountan.
Second Orc: Open up.
Third Orc: Who's there?
Second Orc: Who do you think? Open up!
(note: Orcs in this game have very distinctive growls, and are clearly identifiable as orcs by their voices)
Wizard(OFF): So they never caught you? Then why are there torture marks on your hands?
Gollum(OFF): [whining] They're just scars...
STINKER: SHE could help us!
Second Orc: Something's brewing. Even the shriekers are out and flying. Those screams (Shudders) ...Makes your skin crawl.
STINKER: Sss. Yes, the spider could help. First, lure them into her webs and then...
First Orc: War. That's what's brewing. Folks high up are getting tense.
We've followed the orcs to a spiderweb-strewn tunnel.
First Orc: Hate this tunnel.
Second Orc: (growls) The other lantern is out again!
First Orc: Grukhai! (sniffs) Smell that? She can't be far.
Wizard(OFF): So they never caught you? Then why are there torture marks on your hands?
Gollum(OFF): [whining] They're just scars...
STINKER: SHE could help us!
Second Orc: Something's brewing. Even the shriekers are out and flying. Those screams (Shudders) ...Makes your skin crawl.
STINKER: Sss. Yes, the spider could help. First, lure them into her webs and then...
First Orc: War. That's what's brewing. Folks high up are getting tense.
We've followed the orcs to a spiderweb-strewn tunnel.
First Orc: Hate this tunnel.
Second Orc: (growls) The other lantern is out again!
First Orc: Grukhai! (sniffs) Smell that? She can't be far.
The orcs have unwisely separated from one another.
New Objective: Throttle the first Orc!
Yep! It's time for the orc-killing tutorial. Slip up behind this guy and throttle him. It's easy. Just hold Q.
STINKER: Now! Take this one first!
First Orc: [blissfully unaware of murder] No doubt about it, that's her stench. I hate these tunnels.
New Objective: Throttle the first Orc!
Yep! It's time for the orc-killing tutorial. Slip up behind this guy and throttle him. It's easy. Just hold Q.
STINKER: Now! Take this one first!
First Orc: [blissfully unaware of murder] No doubt about it, that's her stench. I hate these tunnels.
The dead orc collapses into a non-interactible heap. We cannot eat him.
We're now learning how to throw rocks. having played this before, I went up to the rock before I was supposed to, which is why I am blocked from picking it up
STINKER: Sssss. Wants to light fires, does it? Clever Orc.
SLINKER: The other one! He'll see us!
STINKER: We needs a stone!
First Orc: Maggakh?
STINKER: Hit the lantern! Hit the light!
First Orc: Ach! I don't like this. She's lurking somewhere.
We hit the lantern with the stone, turning it off.
First Orc: Hey! What?
First Orc: Hear that?
First Orc: Huh!
First Orc: ...Somewhere close.
He bobbles around and then falls off the bridge.
First Orc: Hey! What?
First Orc: Hear that?
First Orc: Huh!
First Orc: ...Somewhere close.
He bobbles around and then falls off the bridge.
First Orc: [with convincing terror] No! Aaah! Aaah!
(the game can stop telling me to throw a stone at the lantern aaaany time now)
First Orc: [with very convincing terror] Maggakh! Help!
oh no he's still alive
First Orc: No! Aaah! Aaah!
If you want to make Gollum the protagonist of your story, it would be tempting to make him more palatable by presenting orcs in such a way that the player can’t possibly see any problem with Gollum killing them from behind in the dark at his whims. It is, so so easy to make orcs entirely unsympathetic. And Gollum is in an underdog position, being smaller and weaker and alone.
The game decided to introduce us to orcs by showing us:
- an orc that apparently was reasonable enough to let Gollum live with him for a while until, for unknown reasons, Gollum murdered him and kept his skull as a trophy to gloat over
- an orc that was a clear victim, preyed on by Shelob
The game decided to introduce us to orcs by showing us:
- an orc that apparently was reasonable enough to let Gollum live with him for a while until, for unknown reasons, Gollum murdered him and kept his skull as a trophy to gloat over
- an orc that was a clear victim, preyed on by Shelob
- a lieutenant getting bullied by his captain into not helping that orc when he clearly wanted to and was uncomfortable with the whole situation
- these two guys just doing their jobs, and sounding like they were on the verge of not reporting Gollum or interfering with his life at all- and yet he killed them both anyway
- one of them died terrified and crying out for his companion, not knowing he was already dead, because we killed him, with our bare hands
- finally, Gollum's orc-throttling animation is brutal, clumsy, and entirely unglamorous
Orcs are not moral or virtuous and they're not suddenly 'just misunderstood'. However, we will see Gollum terrorize and brutalize these creatures when they have done nothing to him and often don't seem to have done anything wrong aside from 'be an orc'. The game does not shy away from making it uncomfortable.
- one of them died terrified and crying out for his companion, not knowing he was already dead, because we killed him, with our bare hands
- finally, Gollum's orc-throttling animation is brutal, clumsy, and entirely unglamorous
Orcs are not moral or virtuous and they're not suddenly 'just misunderstood'. However, we will see Gollum terrorize and brutalize these creatures when they have done nothing to him and often don't seem to have done anything wrong aside from 'be an orc'. The game does not shy away from making it uncomfortable.
To be clear, I have no issue with the trope of the faceless villain horde that's there only to present an obstacle to be dealt with, or even there to be done away with as a source of entertainment. You don't always have to go beyond that and in many cases it would even be detrimental to the work to do so. But in this game, which is a character study of a villain, I think leaving it at orcs-bad-we-can-eat-them-it's-fine would have been a bit of a copout. I appreciate that the game went a little further and is showing that Gollum's actions are violent, disturbing and unfair, and doing it to orcs doesn't necessarily make it better.
To be entirely fair to Gollum, he has a reasonable belief that he needs to kill these two orcs out of self-defense in order to keep from getting caught by Sauron. But it's not a tidy or nice thing and he doesn't have any qualms at all. I mean look at his friggin' face when Shelob is devouring that totally innocent orc up there man.
Well, nothing more to see here. Gollum shambles off.
Oh, yeah, we're still in full view of Sauron. That's unwise.
STINKER: Must get out of the light, dear.
Oh look, a random patch of flowers. This is something you don't see every day in BARREN WASTELAND HELL WORLD Mordor, so Gollum checks it out.
!!!!!!
BUG
Slinker has entirely mentally dissociated from the murders he just committed and is ready to play with a bug.
STINKER: They'll find us!
(gollum. buddy. pal. friendo. you are a 3d model so why does it look like there is green screen artifacting on your hair)
STINKER: The beetle saw us! Smash it! Smash it!
SLINKER: What if it's friendly?
STINKER: [showing remarkable restraint by not saying 'DO I LOOK LIKE I CARE IF IT'S FRIENDLY????'] Eat it! Don't let it tell on us!
STINKER: [showing remarkable restraint by not saying 'DO I LOOK LIKE I CARE IF IT'S FRIENDLY????'] Eat it! Don't let it tell on us!
(Note: Sauron does spy with birds, but I don't recall him using insects, actual small invertebrates that cannot vocalize. Better safe than sorry?)
Now something special happens- our first Slinker v. Stinker fight!
Now that we are hearing Slinker and Stinker in full argument it is time to talk a bit more in-depth about the voice acting. Gollum is voiced by a guy named Wayne Forester. I was not familiar with him before this game because, here's the thing, I'm not actually much of a gamer (shocker). It looks like he's had a long career in voice acting (95 roles spanning two decades!) for video games, and for children's TV that looks like it's aimed at a pretty young audience. He seems to usually get small roles (and he's often miscredited as Wayne Forrester. cringe) but I see he's been on 226 episodes of something called Horrid Henry. He certainly has experience.
He gave this role 5,000%. As I have done before, I urge you to watch a playthrough to hear it for yourself. However! Maybe you don't want to watch that or can't. So I will describe nice gardens the voice acting to you.
1) Gollum does not quack like a duck. He enunciates pretty clearly, which is appropriate for a character who talks a lot. You may have noticed this in the game, or in Tolkien's writings because it is definitely a book-accurate trait, but Gollum is constantly talking and he has long rambling monologues. It would be a really weird choice to adapt this character and put limits on his vocal production. I'm glad no one did that.
2) Forester is acting Slinker and Stinker with very different tones. (It reminds me of... something.)
3) Stinker has a hoarse, growly pack-a-day voice. He ranges from endearingly sassy and snarky to unnervingly vicious and spiteful.
4) Slinker, on the other hand, has a kind of voice I've never before heard for Gollum- he coos and whines in a soft voice that is childish, but not so high-pitched that you'd actually mistake it for a child. In fact he sounds like... a hobbit.
5) Both voices have a delightful range of emotion verging on scenery-chewing. This is entirely appropriate for the character.
The second voice was initially jarring, because it wasn't what I was expecting from Gollum (and see above about my trepidations about this mechanic)... but it grew on me. It's well-acted.
Anyhow. We were fighting over a beetle! As far as I can tell this argument will affect nothing except for the resulting cutscene we get and it doesn't matter who wins here- it’s pretty clearly another part of the tutorial and it's only here to introduce the player to how these arguments work. Later on, it will matter a who wins.
How much will it matter, you may be asking. You will follow the same general plot regardless of what your choices are, but the flavor of the game- and your story payoffs- can change quite a bit.
Most notably, there are several characters who can survive their encounters with Gollum or not. A dead character leaves the narrative, as is proper, but the same basic plot beats re: our antics as the player character continue in that person's absence, with a different character swapped in if necessary to perform a certain plot task. The characters in this game have personalities, interact with us in drastically different ways and aren't interchangeable, so that difference does matter even if the general events flow the same way. Here's an example: there's a point where you can either dwell on your childhood memories or be taught how to worship Sauron, depending on whether you let an innocent woman die in a birdcage or not.
Also, depending on your choices earlier in the game, you may lose the ability to make other choices later in the game.
Most notably, there are several characters who can survive their encounters with Gollum or not. A dead character leaves the narrative, as is proper, but the same basic plot beats re: our antics as the player character continue in that person's absence, with a different character swapped in if necessary to perform a certain plot task. The characters in this game have personalities, interact with us in drastically different ways and aren't interchangeable, so that difference does matter even if the general events flow the same way. Here's an example: there's a point where you can either dwell on your childhood memories or be taught how to worship Sauron, depending on whether you let an innocent woman die in a birdcage or not.
Also, depending on your choices earlier in the game, you may lose the ability to make other choices later in the game.
So, since it does matter, this playthrough is focusing mostly on...
*drumroll*
...Slinker (a.k.a., Sméagol, the "good" one). Nurturing Gollum's sensitive side
(I am not kidding.)
...will both preserve the lives of some intriguing NPCs and allow them to do more things for longer, and lead Sméagol on a character arc that gives me a lot to talk about.
The only arc Stinker goes on is into the lava. He's pretty set in his ways. His route just gives you more crazy cat-brain murderfrog moments, which I can cover just fine by occasionally going 'if you picked Stinker's option he goes MMM YOM YOM FAT MAN MMM JUICY I AM CANNIBAL' and moving on. (Like don't get me wrong. It's really funny. But I don't feel the need to show you two whole playthroughs.)
So, even though it doesn't really matter this early on, we're going to argue against killing the beetle.
Either Slinker or Stinker will become dominant if given his way more often. This will most obviously affect your HUD:
This will also affect what Gollum chooses to spontaneously say sometimes, and there are a couple other little touches that I will point out as we encounter them.
The strategy in these is pretty obvious if you note what the two personas tend to argue about. If we want to convince Stinker to do something, we use the pragmatic approach... as Gollum understands it. So here we point out that the beetle is a harmless insect. An emotional appeal will result in a response of PBBBBLLLLTTT.
SLINKER: Beetle wants us no harm, does it?
STINKER: Could be a spy. It could be.
SLINKER: Beetle just wants to eat pollen, perhaps.
STINKER: Pollen. Hm, yes. It hasn't been following us, has it?
SLINKER: It likes us. Look! LOOK!
(Gollum's textures rendered all the way for a brief moment. Ohh he needs a shower)
My first playthrough I got slightly different dialog here, and I don't remember if I did something different or if it was actually randomized. Slinker pointed out that the bug probably isn't a spy because the bird wasn't one, and Stinker agreed- the birds were just nesting.
These arguments can wrap up pretty fast. This first one isn't anything too special, but at other times I will try to drag these talks out with intentional wrong choices (since you're allowed one or two) and spliced-in lines from my other playthrough footage where appropriate. Gollum says the darndest things to himself.
(Fun fact: if you decide to kill the beetle, Gollum jumps at it aggressively, scaring it off, and thus fails to catch it. IIRC that version of the cutscene is much shorter. I won't show it to you because I neglected to screen record it and frankly it's not interesting enough for me to go recapture it.)
(Gollum's eyes have a pearlescent sheen when light hits them. It's a very nice touch; unfortunately the effect sometimes inappropriately extends to his eyelids.)
OH
OH A FELLBEAST
HEY WE TOTALLY SAW ONE OF THESE GUYS EARLIER
OW OOF OUCH MY SKIN
A brave stance for a man who's just lost all of the skin on the front of his body and both nipples.
(i wasn't joking)
STINKER: Gah! Hmph! ... Bah, it hurts!
SLINKER: Are they gone?
Gollum has a lil snack of mushrooms (you can see them indicated by a gray dot):
STINKER: Well done, my dear.
Consuming fungus, worms, lice and eggses will heal the horrific fractures you take while platforming because this game has fall damage. Yes it does it has fall damage.
Food healing broken bones is naturally very silly, however, this game is no sillier than nearly every other video game with healing items.
We have one final tutorial mechanic.
Pressing R will highlight nearby hostiles and let you see them through walls, useful for stealth sections. (I think we can assume this is a representation of Gollum scenting them and listening for the sounds of movement. Or we can just say ‘it’s a video game’ and not think about it.)
It will also highlight in blue any nearby interactible objects, food, or collectibles. Sometimes, you get those red ribbons on the ground, which are an indicator of which route to travel. At other times when there are no enemies around and no interactible items you also get no red ribbons and this sense does nothing and if you can’t figure out where to go it sucks to be you. Oh well.
Anything your 'heightened senses' highlighted will stay highlighted for a short time after you return to normal view.
SLINKER: (Scared noises) The wraiths! The wraiths! He's in here! Where now? (frightened breathing) Precious... Wah!
Right I am going to give you some additional context right here, instead of waiting for you to figure it out naturally as the game shows it to you, because it changes the demeanor of Gollum's dialog significantly.
You've probably noticed all of the terms of endearment 'my love/sweet one/my dear/precious', etc. While The Hobbit does include the sentence 'he always called himself my precious', I usually get the impression that much of the time when Gollum says 'my precious' it is a verbal tic with no real meaning or intended result.
That is not true of this game. As I said before, this game goes really hard with the two personalities. This game does not go so far as to establish where these two personalities came from, what they are, why they're here, etc. That's all still one big mystery. (And it's a fantasy setting, with magic and weird stuff, so the possible explanations for this are potentially infinite.) So I have no idea whether or not Stinker is an artifact created by the Ring, an imaginary friend of sorts created by Sméagol and invested with a sort of life of his own through long years of LARPing as him, or whether he was always like that and Gollum's psyche should actually be considered to be comprised of two separate people who were somehow both born in the same body and both have equal rights to exist in it. One interesting thing that you don't usually see with this type of character is that Slinker and Stinker never seem to take issue with sharing a corporeal form. Each of them seems comfortable with the idea that there is just another guy in his head with him (and it's often unclear to me who is 'steering'). Of course, they've have 500+ years to hash these thing
Since the game does not answer any of those questions, I'm just going to drop it and move on.
What is clear is that not only do the two personalities talk to each other, they have a little bit of a relationship dynamic. And they call out to one another.
That was a roundabout way of saying that when Slinker cries out 'Precious', he's not talking about the Ring and it's not a meaningless verbal habit, and he's also not strictly talking to himself in the usual sense; he is calling out to Stinker (though he doesn't always reply). Meanwhile, Stinker uses a whole range of pet terms for Slinker, that mostly seem calculated to soothe, placate, console, or just make him shut up. So when you see a 'my precious' or anything in that vein, he's talking to his other self and seems to actually be trying to communicate something to him.
Okay back to Ringwraiths.
You can't escape the Nazgul here, the game is being cheeky. I did something just like this once in an RPGmaker game I made, but it was more dickish when I did it. I had a chase in Act 1 of the game where you really could (and had to) escape. In Act 3 an identical-looking chase started but this time it didn't end until you get caught. I've scrubbed that game from all of my accounts, you can't play it now.
Even though I knew this was probably a story thing that I couldn't 'win' (because I read the book, I know he gets caught lol) the tense music combined with the game forcing you to scurry through these claustrophobic tunnels really did trigger a sense of dread in me the first time I played this, in a pleasurable 'oo its very spooky' way.
Spoilers: He gets caught.
Gollum has proven by now that he's hard to catch (being small and weak does not make him easier to catch. have you ever tried to catch a cat), so 3 Nazgul vs. one Gollum is not at all unreasonable if you really want to keep ahold of him.
However it does look a bit silly to see 3 sith vs. 1 baby.
We're suddenly back in Mirkwood.
Wizard: Look at me.
That was a sneak peek at one of the best characters in the game, but we won't see her again for several hours, so never mind that now.
Wizard: Look at me!
Wizard: They brought you to HIM. Didn't they?
Wizard: The Dark Lord. What did you tell him?
NO ARGH
Wizard: What did you tell Sauron?!
Time to get tortured!not by Gandalf's horrible model
Wizard: The Dark Lord. What did you tell him?
NO ARGH
Wizard: What did you tell Sauron?!
Time to get tortured!
HIS VOICE: Nazg-sishi! Nazg urdgasul!
Wizard: What did you tell him?
STINKER: Nothing! Nothing! We swears! We sweaaars!
HIS VOICE: Nazg!
(i suspect there are also ankle restraints on this device somewhere out of frame, and gollum is just too tiny to fit into them)
EXPERIMENT Glowing 1000 degree KNIFE VS NAKED OLD MAN
(i suspect there are also ankle restraints on this device somewhere out of frame, and gollum is just too tiny to fit into them)
EXPERIMENT Glowing 1000 degree KNIFE VS NAKED OLD MAN
SLINKER: Aaah!
STINKER: Don't tell them, precious!
SLINKER: Aaaah! Naaaah! Grrraaah! Baggins took it! Baggins, from the Shire!
Wizard: So he knows.
STINKER: Don't tell them, precious!
SLINKER: Aaaah! Naaaah! Grrraaah! Baggins took it! Baggins, from the Shire!
This scene is tastefully brief. We know what happened and then we move on. Overall, the game does a good job at presenting violence and dark themes clearly enough to convey what's going on but without making it voyeuristic. (This isn't the first time we'll see silhouettes, for example.) I have no issue with violence/gore in media but I don't like to see it get fetishistic or... weird.
…On a weirder note, this bit was in nearly all of the game trailers leading up to release. Gollum getting tortured comprises
*wild guess*
Less than one percent of the game maybe???? Sure, put it in all the ads.
Wizard: So he knows.
Gollum is completely silent here.
The books do not describe exactly what Gollum told Sauron:
'Yes, alas! through him the Enemy has learned that the One has been found again. He knows where Isildur fell. He knows where Gollum found his ring. He knows that it is a Great Ring, for it gave long life. He knows that it is not one of the Three, for they have never been lost, and they endure no evil. He knows that it is not one of the Seven, or the Nine, for they are accounted for. He knows that it is the One. And he has at last heard, I think, of hobbits and the Shire.
'The Shire - he may be seeking for it now, if he has not already found out where it lies. Indeed, Frodo, I fear that he may even think that the long-unnoticed name of Baggins has become important.'
- J. R. R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Rellowship
The game doesn't describe exactly what Gollum told Sauron either (we only saw part of Gollum's interrogation- I think that can be inferred from just this scene, since we were shown a torture session already in progress; but Gollum will later allude to other things that were done to him that we didn't see).We now enter Barad-Dur...
..And that was the end of Chapter 1!
As I said at the beginning of this post, Chapter 1 is really more of a prologue. We'll be getting into Game for real in the next update, and seeing more of its usual tone and methods, plus we'll start meeting the characters the devs invented for this game.
The stuff with Gandalf is... fine. It was a good place to intro the game (IF ONLY GANDALFS FACE DIDNT LOOK LIKE THAT,) but it feels a little constrained since they're so tightly anchored to canon. Honestly, I am more excited about showing you what happens when the devs start running the asylum and Gollum starts talking to people more. I'm also looking forward to getting into Chapter 2 because I'm mostly done with discussing background/intro stuff about Gollum and the LP won't screech to a halt as often.
Buckle your seatbelts!
SESSION STATS:
TIMES FAILED PLATFORMING... IN A CUTSCENE: 3 (+3)
TIMES SMACKED, SWATTED, OR STRUCK: 1 (+1) Gandalf struck us with his staff. I am not counting the 1000 degree knife
GOLLUM UPSKIRT SHOTS OMITTED FROM SCREENCAPS: 3 (+3)
Post-Chapter Fun Facts:
Oh, do I have a nice juicy secret for you! I poked around in the game files looking for assets, and I found files that contained art direction/story beat notes from the devs!
Here are the notes for Gollum's cave of gloom, courtesy of locations.xml:
Gollum's cave is a hidden and very hard to get to hole in the mountain side. Some orc hermit had lived here, who had deserted his company, but after he turned out to be a bad and untrustworthy companion, we killed him and took over his home. We have been living here now for almost thirty years. We have made the place somewhat comfortable. There is a sleeping matt[sic] made of branches and plants; a sad clattering mobile made of animal bones; an orc skull on a natural shelf and some other artworks made of the things we have eaten over the years. There also is some kind of shrine where we worship Shelob the demon spider. And on some walls there are ugly drawings.
Mmmmmm that's the content I love.
I mentioned that the nifty ink-style flashback cutscene does not recur. It does not recur in-game, but the game's achievement icons, of all things, are drawn in that same style! Here are all the achievements (these are global player stats):
I will discuss what these achievements actually are & what they entail when we reach the points in-game where you can earn them. (Some of them are pretty self-explanatory. In this chapter: looking at everything in Gollum's cave, and... finishing chapter 1)
I think these numbers will mean more after the game's gone on sale at least once & maybe had some fixes/patches released because, well, a lot of people don't want to play it right now. But I am intrigued to see a couple of things:
> more people have finished chapter 10 than chapter 9. You can't play them out of order. Something weird is going on here.
> more people have the 'save all the elves' achievement than the 'kill all the elves' achievement even though saving the elves requires you to go out of your way to play the game more. This is because killing all the elves is actually somewhat difficult! You see I don't have that achievement either. I'll talk about why that is when we get to it in-game which won't be for a looooong time.
> more people have the 'save all the elves' achievement than the 'kill all the elves' achievement even though saving the elves requires you to go out of your way to play the game more. This is because killing all the elves is actually somewhat difficult! You see I don't have that achievement either. I'll talk about why that is when we get to it in-game which won't be for a looooong time.
> more people have the 'all Gollum choices' achievement than the 'all Sméagol choices' achievement. I think there may be a specific reason that contributes to this, aside from Stinker having the funnier lines for memes, and I will tell you what that is when we get to it. (again, as you can see, I did not get that achievement either)
> I don't believe anyone has really completed the game without dying. I think people are hacking. I don't believe it. Liars.
I'm actually not entirely joking. Here's a similar achievements statistic from The Lord of the Rings: Adventure Card Game...
...See that? Eh?
It's an impossible achievement. The game requires you to use a team of 3 hero cards, and there are only two Gondor heroes in the game (Boromir and Faramir, if you were wondering). You CANNOT get this achievement. 0.1% of players are hacking or something.
(c-rowlesdraws from tumblr)
Date: 2023-07-11 06:58 pm (UTC)Re: (c-rowlesdraws from tumblr)
Date: 2023-07-11 06:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-08-07 05:55 pm (UTC)"An interesting, novel take on epic or heroic fantasy. Novel starts shortly after a band of heroes killed Sauron, and the protagonist is a woman who cut off Sauron's arm. And also slew a dragon. Is a hero, is my point. The book's point is interrogating the aftermath of Sauron's fall. If you don't handwave a genocide of the orcs, what do all these sapients who were purpose-built to be shock troopers for Evil do with themselves? What do people whose entire adult lives have been dedicated to Vanquishing Evil do after evil has been vanquished?
What do these societies that have been organized around total war against a definite other do when that other is eliminated?"
and another one said
"Its core thematic argument is a serious concern with ethics and right action, with fair dealing and making peace across chasms that seem at times unbridgeable. At its heart, it’s kind – it’s about making flawed choices, or learning to regret terrible ones, and about valuing small acts that make a difference."
It's certainly not Tolkien (and is less middle earth with the serial numbers filed off than the review suggests) but there's a lot there you might like. One of the main characters is a not-orc who was a torturer for not-Sauron and helped the heroines turn on him out of sheer self interest (having not-Sauron as a boss really sucks actually!) and it takes the time to think about culpability and trying to move on that maybe lets him and others off the hook a bit more than I'd prefer, but is very interested in trying to move on and make the world better rather than visiting retribution.
no subject
Date: 2023-08-07 06:06 pm (UTC)