@@stuporman ehhh, at least LJN had some quality games like Spider-Man & Venom in Maximum Carnage, a good deal of the WWF games, and Alien 3 based off what I remember
Don't care, Daedalic Entertainment's first title was Edna and Harvey: The Breakout, one of the best games I have ever played. Don't care at all about Lord of the Rings.
@girayneIt's the biggest scale game they've made. The developer is a shovelware house. The reason this is a failure is they were too overambitious. They likely didn't have the staff.
@@nathandts3401 Daedalic is well known for quite high-quality point-and-click adventure games. They were far from a shovelware house, but definitely unequipped to handle anything of this scale.
I remember when people wrote that PS5 is more powerful than most PCs,.. and now when i see this game and how bad it performs, holly hell. How and why do people actually spend money on this garbage game. Even some cut scenes look like 10..15 years old.
@@AJDOLDCHANNELARCHIVE 😅 logically, the Nintendo switch is also more powerful than about 90% of PCs on earth. Doesn't change the fact they're both glorified leapfrogs with wifi
I was recently watching someone on Twitch playing this game on pc and everry time they died the fps got worse for some reason until it was looking like a PowerPoint presentation. This is truly one of the games of all time
Don't care, Daedalic Entertainment's first title was Edna and Harvey: The Breakout, one of the best games I have ever played. Don't care at all about Lord of the Rings.
It blows my mind that modern consoles *still* struggle to run games at 60 FPS @ 1440p. Meanwhile I'm enjoying a solid 120+ FPS at 4K in nearly *every* game on my PC! If I can't get at *least* 90 FPS on a PC game @ 4K, then I won't even waste my time on it. Can't believe that console games are coming out on a freaking PS5 and *still* struggle to maintain even 30 FPS with ray tracing! Pathetic! What happened to optimization?
@Psythik there are a crapton of amazing PC new releases that won't run at a solid 90+ fps at 4k lol, you are full of crap and being extremely hyperbolic. Even with the best intel or AMD processor and a 4090, there's plenty of games that won't even get 60 at 4k, it's simply too taxing. If you need 90+ fps at 4k to play anything, then you must only be playing older games and twitch shooters and such, because most solid rpgs and such nowadays can't do 90+fps at 4k with the best of pc hardware available right now
@@Psythikis your pc worth $500? are you running native 4k? are you using a midrange amd gpu like the consoles? you're right to question optimization, it's a fact most developers nowadays are garbage at it regardless of it being almost inevitable because stockholders are rushing them to release unfinished products. gamers have to stop paying to be alpha testers if they want to make those greedy publishers understand they're not turning a profit unless games are polished upon launch.
@@PsythikThe entire consoles cost less than a high end graphics card. It's not too surprising that 1440p is the best they can do at 60fps. You buy a console and you're paying for convenience and the first party exclusives.
This amazing game will work amazingly when it comes out on Switch, the developers have already apologized and are hard at work on patches. In a couple of months, all gamers in the world will be playing it with great pleasure. Mark my words.
@Tt Ghhgg nah that game was broken on every platform, PC included. Just a buggy mess with a bland gameplay. Story was cool, I'll give you that, but that's as good as it gets.
None of the platform holders, especially Sony care in what messy state something on their platform releases as long as they dont compromise security of their platform or have really troublesome content for them. Sony only did that to Cyberpunk because it had a huge opening and hype around it, leading to angry mobs wanting their money back and bothering their customer services too much. So it was simply easier to deal with by just tempoary remove it. Sony wouldnt care for Cyberpunk if it had the same interest (basically none) as this. Sony is happily advertising Life of Black Tiger after all. So basically dont expect platform holders to take action unless they feel forced to.
I love the positive thing you found about the game: "Plus the concept art included in the Deluxe edition does give a fascinating insight into what could have been." :D
In Shadow of Mordor PS3's defense, despite all the cutbacks and poor performance, it was a valiant effort porting it to an aging console known for being difficult to work with. This game, however, is inexcusable.
@@WH250398 MGS 5 was built with ps3/Xbox 360 in mind unlike shadow of Mordor which was built with ps4/Xbox one first in mind. Not the same situation at all.
No. Shadow of Mordor is a thoroughly 7th gen looking game with some upgrades for 8th gen. It should have not run that disastrously on PS3/X360. Whoever did the port or WB didn't bother with actually putting out a great port.
Looks like Daedalic punched way above their own weight with this one. It's cool that they explore new territories, but this is just awful. I really hope they will recover from this because their point & click adventure games are usually fantastic and they play a significant part in the adventure revival. It's true what they say: Schuster, bleib bei deinem Leisten.
Well, my only experience with Deadalic was Deponia on PC and I couldn't finish it because of bugs. Many people experienced the same problem and the developers couldn't fix it, they just uploaded a save allowing players to bypass the problematic section. So it's not like the company has a great track record.
Nearly all of the people responsible for their point and click adventures are already no longer at daedalic. They all left since the buyout from nacon. Even Poki, one of the devs who wrote many of their games, voiced characters and sang the songs, left three years ago.
Only encountered on bug in my 10 plus hour through on ps5 and no stuttering at all.Its actually a good parkour focused adventure game,with good dialogue between Gollum and other characters.Decent stealth and puzzles.The art style and level variety is well done as are certain set pieces.Its not nearly as bad as people claim and was actually pretty good.Seems people expected something different then an adventure game,where upset with the shitty PC version and dlc bullcrap,or just jumped on the hate bandwagon watching a few vids instead of playing post patch update.Easy 7 out of ten for me ,will put it on the shelf with my hundred of other games to enjoy in future playthroughs...Much Respect to the studio for their unique vision and experience playing as Gollum..
Because these games are targeting general audiences and casuals. People that don't follow gaming or tech news and usually plays like 1 or 2 games a year. They see LotR name in the cover in the retail store and they buy.
Well to be fair, that is usually the case with Tom's videos. Whenever he asks these questions, you usually get the broad answer by looking at the footage.
At Forspoken launch: this is obviously the worst game of the year. At Redfall launch: This is obviously the worst game of the year. At Gollum launch: This is definitely the worst game of the year?
@@Vsevolod3788 In Starfield’s case I think that’ll blow over pretty smoothly because people expect an obscene level of jank and bugginess in an internal Bethesda project. I vividly remember Skyrim on PS3. And that was an absolute nightmare of a port. Still better than New Vegas on PS3. It’s my favorite Fallout game, but I had the misfortune of playing it on PS3. I was so jealous of my friends on 360 and PC because their versions were just mildly janky. My version was full on disaster.
@@OrtadragoonX They spent an additional 10 months working on it; you'd hope that the significant bugs would be fixed at that point (though they may keep in some "fun" ones because that's what people expect at this point).
People tend to say the graphics of this game are PS3 level or whatever but tbh, I could name over 100 PS3 games that are actually quite beautiful and even have better textures. Like you cant tell me Gollum is on par with Killzone 2.
Certainly most of the major first party ones I can think of. Metal Gear Solid 4. God of War 3. Heavenly Sword. And yeah I get it, first party AAA vs third party AA, unfair comparison. But... all of those games we just mentioned are over 12 years old lol. It's also just no excuse. Go look at gameplay of Styx: Shards of Darkness, and compare it to this. That's a similarly themed Unreal Engine 4 game from 5 years ago. Also made by a AA studio with budget constraints. Even just from CZcams videos you can see that game is leagues ahead of Gollum both in terms of visuals and performance. UE4 might be a spotty engine, especially in terms of the visual fidelity to performance ratio, but plenty of smaller studios have made it work.
What I dont get is that if you want to make a LOTR game featuring Gollum.... Why on earth not from the time when he still had the ring? With the ring you could have made stealth sections that made actual sense... Also, with the ring Gollum would have been able to fight creatures much stronger than him. You could make interesting mechanics, like the more you use the ring, the crazier Gollum gets, with like weird hallucinations or something. Or perhaps introduce special beings from the spirit realm like the wraiths who can only see him when he has the ring on, forcing you to switch between both worlds. Knowing when to use the ring or when absolutely not to and look for another solution, sounds like a very solid gameplay foundation for an adventure game with platforming and stealth elements. Also it would allow us, as players, to use the actual freaking ring and play around with its awesome power... I mean... it sounds like a no-brainer to me... And it would have made total sense within the Tolkien canon... Gollum had the ring for a long time and did all sorts of crazy stuff during that time. You could start the game with him finding the ring and killing his brother Deagol and end the game in the cave with Bilbo, so perfectly framed within the bigger story. Also from a narrative perspective it would have been great... We could have seen a original take of how someone goes insane, as the ring slowly takes over Smeagols mind and turns him in to Gollum... Perhaps to tell a more universal tale beyond the character about the phenomenon insanity in general. From that perspective the story would have been just as much about the ring itself as about Gollum, surely a much more interesting proposition for any LOTR fan. The only reason why Gollum is a part of the story and why he is even interesting as a character is because he had the ring for so long anyway. Gollum could have been the narrative vehicle through we, as players, could have experienced what it must have been like to hold a ring of power with its terrible influence. Gollum would have been perfect for that because he isnt a Nazgul or great Elven Lord or anything... He could have been anyone so perfectly suited for this role.
"Why on earth not from the time when he still had the ring? With the ring you could have made stealth sections that made actual sense..." It's a good idea, but it flies in the face of canon. We are told that the reason Gollum didn't turn into a wraith, despite possessing the Ring for so many years, is that he *didn't* use the Ring often after his banishment. But more than that, I think turning the One Ring into a gameplay device cheapens it - unless it comes with some kind of risk/reward system. For example, using the Ring too frequently should result in damage to Gollum's stats (maybe it lowers his endurance?), while you get bonuses for completing sections without resorting to the Ring. Basically, the Ring is so overpowered that you should use it as little as possible.
@@jamesgravil9162 Yeah thats what I tried to think about. Using the ring might attract wraits or something, or cause like weird hallucinations, or speeds up the transition from Smeagol to Gollum which comes with potential downsides. Basically, like a sort of super buff that you can only use for a short time. I mean, thats not not-cannon and offers a lot of possibilities gameplay-wise. Sounds a lot better than anything the actual game does right? :P
This developer is mostly known for point and click adventure games. I don't understand why they didn't just make a telltale/life is strange style adventure game in a 3D space instead of a weird platformer/stealth game.
Ran great on PS5,..absolutely not stuttering and only one bug at chapter 3.Was a very enjoyable parkour focused adventure game,not nearly as bad as people pretend
This game was the game of all time. The characters did some things. There was action. Gollum was in it. There was gameplay. The music played. Dialogue was spoken. Score/10
Developing game (for many people) became ONLY connecting colored blocks and mark checkboxes in a game engine. It explains many issues in performance. It has a price.
I genuinely think this game was the developer biting off more than they could chew. Dadelic had never done anything this ambitious or with this kind of scope before, and I think that lack of experience resulted in games that look and feel unfinished on every platform.
How is this game ambitious? This game looks like a DS lite game from 2007, and I hope Dadelic never make another game again. I cant believe they managed to produce a bigger dump than Redfall.
Ironically even though it has that PS2 cheap license game feel to it the actual gameplay reminds me of nothing but bland AAA games from the 360/PS3 era. Super on rails and the stealth and platforming lack any depth whatsoever. Even if it wasn't a buggy mess there would be nothing fun about it unless you're really into that style of game we've thankfully long since moved past.
I thought Gollum would be the type of story that would change depending on your choices In the trailer when confronted by orcs Smeagol wants to hide but Gollum chooses to fight I assumed that you would have the option to choose certain paths like a Smeagol route and a Gollum route and it would change key points throughout the game
I don't know...is it just my selective view, or are we really in a period of time where Games don't really look that great but still can't manage acceptable performance, even on high-end PCs? Sometimes even Hardware several generations newer than the Game itself can't run certain titles at a solid 60...with GPUs that cost a small fortune...
It's the obsession with ray tracing in most games. It requires $5k computers to run smoothly but barely makes a graphical difference. Not talking about this game tho, it's just an unfinished piece of trash.
I said this in 2021. For the graphic improvements people want, the hardware does not currently exist. We didn't need a new console generation, and we are playing with software tech that isn't usable yet. This is the only reason upscaling tech is so focused on right now. Because without it graphics needed to stagnate for a while. The problem is, AAA developers have for the most part made garbage for years with only a few standouts, and Nvidia has to fund software tech advances to sell their graphics cards. Reasonably, games need to start focusing less on graphics and more on what they can do with their power. But most AAA games have game designers who know nothing about game design. The industry is reliant on novelty and is running out, so its pushing itself into a crash.
Gameplay wise it *looks* a lot like a generic Tomb Raider game. The difference is that the Tomb Raiders games sometimes have good puzzles, and the levels generally give you some idea of where you should be going. Not always, I'll grant you, but most of the time. From a technical point of view, I hope the develeopers can carry on optimising the game, and get enough of a frame rate boost that they can bring back the raytraced shadows, It does look halfway decent with those shadows enabled, we just need to get a decent framerate.
Have you seen that No Man's Sky has been officially released for Macs? I'm really curious about the performance and the MetalFX upscailing, I would love a video from you guys
I'm sad Gollum turned out this way. Gollum's story had good potential for a sympathetic villain, and the platforming could've been cool if it was well executed
I agree. I have always been interested in what happened to Gollum before the Lord of the Rings. I think the books mentioned this in one line. It looks what we have here is greedy bosses forcing a game release when it is clearly in an alpha stage at best. Charging £60 for this rubbish is an insult and will hopefully punish them for their poor greedy reason for releasing this when clearly the game is no where near close to being released.
>"But you need 24gb 450w GPUs and 300w CPUs to play latest and greatest releases just so you can match the consoles" >Meanwhile here's how "Latest and Greatest Releases" look and run
I think that if you took Barbie horseback riding for PS2 as a base game and developed it further, you'd have a better game than this piece of fecal matter.
I just saw what is being reviewed and thought: "Damn, that's gonna be a blood bath. Why even beat a dead horse?". So sad that Daedalic wasn't able to make a good game out of it.
I've noticed that CZcams is zooming thumbnails in such that part of the title text is getting cut off. It might be a good idea to add a 10% "no-go zone" around the border of thumbnails for text to avoid that.
Kind of sad actually. I’ve always considered the Lord of the ring games to be very visually beautiful. So I assumed that this was going to be the case for this game. So I was shocked at how horrible it looked on post glance. I was really looking forward to the game. Because again, the Lord of the ring games had a pretty good storyline. I really liked Gollum. And was looking forward to playing it. Oh well.
Man, those games are made by different developers. Gollum developer bought the rights and made their own, it doesn't have anything to do with the older LOTR games.
@@Th3Fly1ngCow Cyberpunk did get a "pass" for its pedigree, they promised they would fix the issues and because it was such a massive release. It's the kind of release that if only one platform has it, the other stands to lose a lot. Gollum is mostly just a bad game. It's not up to MS and Sony to stop bad games from releasing since they don't have anything to lose with smaller scale releases.
It's kind of hilarious looking back before the PlayStation 5 in series x were even announce that this was everyone's rumored preview into what next gen would look and be like. Considering the amount of programming nightmare failures that happened, maybe it's a little too prophetic.
@@evostu7814 In terms of hardware they technically _should_ be capable of that assuming the game in question is well optimized and not wasting a ton of resources on frivolous effects. iirc the PS5 and Series X are both running about the equivalent of a Radeon 6600XT an Ryzen 3700x. Meanwhile the series S has a weaker GPU (I'm not sure what that one compares with), but the same CPU. Problem we've got right now is that optimization and properly managing the effects budget of game engines (especially UE4 and Unity) is basically just not a concept most game developers seem to be capable of grasping right now. And it has been that way for a few years now. Things are bad on PC too, worse even in many cases, but at least on PC you can brute force your way through most of these issues with powerful enough hardware. You absolutely should not have to though. Realistically this Gollum game, if it was actually made well, should be running 120fps+ max settings without raytracing on anything above a RTX 3060 and Ryzen 5600. Without hitching or stuttering.
@@yewtewbstew547 The PS5 is about a RX 6700 non XT, while the Series X is more like a 6700 XT in terms of teraflops. They've stated that the Series S is on par with the Xbox One X, so about an RX 580.
2:14 Huh, I've seen a lot of people playing this who didn't like it, but thought the climbing parts were TOO obvious, not hard to see. It looks like everywhere you need to go is painted on way too obviously.
We should all appreciate Tom for suffering through this game so we don't have to. PS: Is the thumbnail a reference to that megamind meme or just a coincidence?
I just wanted to say that your picture is one of the best albums ever. I randomly discovered Milton Nascimento a few years ago and Clube de Esquina No 2 has moved me to tears multiple times from it's sheer beauty. I don't even understand the language, the music is enough.
When the developers asked themselves how they could match Shadow of Mordor they played the ps3 version. I'd say they succeeded in matching that version especially on series s.
@@Marty6804 apart from literally every Bethesda studio release ever. Of course those games were great, but from a technical perspective they were buggy af
Oh man, Tom took one for the team there, hopefully he enjoys his time with Street Fighter 6. I was never going to buy this game, but it’s still a damn shame, I hope Daedalic will recover.
Developer to employees: Hey, great news, we got the license approval to make a Lord of the Rings game based on Gollum. Employees: Horray! Developer: What's our actual talent level to know what type of game we can actually aim for? Employees: We can give you slightly better quality visuals than the Spawn movie from the 90s and we don't mean the cool cape parts. Developer: We're doomed.
Great analysis and no punches pulled. I feel bad for developers knowing their game is going to be put under a microscope like this while their execs want the game to release
@@IHeart16Bit consumers should know better than to preorder. The reviews and gameplay is enough to conclude this is not for most people. Developers are however trying to make a living
@@caseypenk also there were surely some bad devs on the game. I feel bad for a good dev who has to work with people who don’t know what they’re doing, and bad management
If they had stuck to their Point & Click expertise, they could have made a real good story driven game out of this with a nice drawn look to explore Gollums world. Why they went completely out of their field of experience with a big license like this is beyond me.
1.) Be a 50 man 2D point and click game studio in germany. 2.) Be past yur prime 3.) Get bought out by shady publisher. 4.) Get forced to make a 3D AAA Lord of the rings game with just a 5 milion budget and no expirience
Funny starting the review with that mention because this reminds me of an early PS4 game basically a PS3 version with higher resolution and better texture filtering but nothing else thats a gen ahead and the character modeling and animation is just strange
Team that's never done anything like this pushed to do it/being too ambitious, plus publisher pushing heavy advertising and full price for what should be a $20-30 title max.
90% of budget to get the LotR license and characters, 9% marketing, 1% for the actual game. Maybe that's why the game was made by a borderline indie studio that only prior experience are point and click games.
Don't Sony and MS have some sort of quality control for what they put on their respective stores? Who thought that this disaster was acceptable for release?
@@Lyaagato you can laugh! The developers will release patches and all players in the world will play Gollum all year long. And then we will ask you: WHO IS LAUGHING NOW???!!!
Bruhh making games like this one is easier than ever. It uses Unreal engine which is open. Visuals look like trash as if only free assets were used that too not properly, game is laden with bugs. RT and SSR don't require much effort compared to rasterization. Simply blaming game development= complex is making fool of yourself. WE have had much better games in terms of graphics, physics, stability, un-bugginess in the past. The problem isn't game development, the problem is soulless studios and management.
Do we really need raytracing for reflections on flat surfaces like water and puddles? Half-Life 2 could do water reflections back in 2004. And what about that spartan hair simulation? Prince of Persia could do something as convincing way back in 2003. I'm getting the feeling developers are overenginering things these days.
Half Life 2 reflections are less a good example of good and more the stuff they got with Source 2. Almost as efficient, drastically better, and almost as good as ray tracing. Ray tracing is a comically wasteful tech achieving a minor effect that could much better be achieved with cheap technologies and good visual design. The problem is that those take a lot of work, why ray tracing is really easy and quick to implement (if you dont care to optimise)
Tried this on PC and was able to brute force my way through performance issues thankfully getting 150fps with RT enabled. Good thing too cause it showed me I needed to uninstall it. I knew it was going to be bad just 5 minutes in when I saw a nicely ray traced reflection in a puddle that was _on a slope._ I told my wife this looks like a PS4 game, only to find out later that's exactly what it was. I try to ignore reviews and spoilers for many games when today's pessimistic gamer always wants to burn new releases at the stake cause it doesn't run at 4k/120 on their 2070 super. I have a strong enough system to use raytracing when it's available so I'm usually immune to performance issues. I'm quite forgiving on games as I don't care about bugs and poor graphics as long as there's solid gameplay. And this is where Gollum's _REAL_ weakness lies. Gameplay is so laughably dull and linear. I'm fine with linear if they're holding your hand through having fun, but this was a slog through 2002 mediocrity. No amount of patches and optimization can save this dumpster fire when the core gameplay is deeply flawed and uninspiring. I wouldn't play this again if I could run it at 4k/360 with RT maxed. It truly deserves the terrible reviews it's gotten and more reviews need to focus on the game itself rather than the shitty performance, because that aspect isn't getting any better.
@@EfecanYSL See that's one of the weird things about this game. Some assets look _really_ good while others are deep in PS4 territory. It's like they had 2 separate teams working on PS4 and next gen, and the next gen team ran out of time so they plugged in the models they didn't finish from the PS4 version to shove it out the door. The character models are especially bad when they should be the highest priority.
I feel that a game like this is great at exposing how ray tracing is still way too early to be implemented in real-time. Even on PC with much better hardware, the trade-off with ray-tracing isn't worth the marginally better visual boost. Sometimes, ray tracing looks worse than the methods we already have. Even if you prefer how it looks, the fact that a PS5 game in 2023 is releasing for $60 and it runs at N64 levels of frame rate is just unacceptable.
To be fair to the technology, hardly any lightning designers really know how to use RT properly yet, & it's often combined with basic static lighting & baked lightmaps so it never really gets to show off how impressive it can look. It requires a whole different approach to where you put the lights & how far they cast though, & that takes time to learn when you're used to the old ways. I think, as more devs & designers learn how to properly utilise it, they'll be able to do more impressive looking stuff with fewer light sources. Hopefully we will start seeing more experimentation soon instead of attempts to just plug in ray traced reflections & shadows to the same environments.
@@nightcatarts You're not wrong, but these consoles aren't powerful enough to really do ray-tracing justice. Even PCs aren't quite there despite the 4090 making a compelling argument. I believe that developers should be focusing on performance over a slight uptick in quality, though I suspect it really is publishers demanding crap like this.
@@KingSigy Yea I agree that it's not quite there, but it can remove the need for different frame-stealing visual effects entirely if it's applied properly. Some AO is still required because the ray & bounce count is too low, but a baked lighting pass & associated material layer can go (unless more favourable than active AO where that could instead be baked), untraced shadows can go, untraced lights can be removed entirely & replaced with point flares, etc. None of those things seem to really be getting done in RT-on modes, so the extra drag of the old tech is applied alongside the drag of the new tech. I think there's plenty of scope for optimisation but it does mean reworking everything specifically for ray tracing.
@@nightcatarts Part of the problem is that ray tracing is way too expensive to be the sole lighting option, but also only works unless a game is visually designed with it being the sole lighting option. This is why Metro Exodus Enhanced removed non-RT mode. If they wanted the game to look as good as intended with RT, they needed to not support conventional lighting.
Tom is probably the only man in youtube that can calmly explain what a doo doo of a game Gollum is
Yeah he was very polite 😅
He is probably the only adult on youtube
He is professional. His job is to perform technical analysis, not rant
"Doo Doo" 🤣
@@Dohvakiiin straight DOOKIE 💩 😂
Thank you Daedalic for providing that nostalgic terrible licensed game feel!
it's like an LJN game back in the day
go to hell! Did you play Gollum to say that? This is a great game for great people.
@@stuporman ehhh, at least LJN had some quality games like Spider-Man & Venom in Maximum Carnage, a good deal of the WWF games, and Alien 3 based off what I remember
Don't care, Daedalic Entertainment's first title was Edna and Harvey: The Breakout, one of the best games I have ever played. Don't care at all about Lord of the Rings.
It would have been a great pack-in game for cereal!
Can't wait for the horror story behind this game to drop in a decade or so. It'll be.. precious.
@girayneIt's the biggest scale game they've made. The developer is a shovelware house.
The reason this is a failure is they were too overambitious. They likely didn't have the staff.
@@nathandts3401 Daedalic is well known for quite high-quality point-and-click adventure games. They were far from a shovelware house, but definitely unequipped to handle anything of this scale.
@@arbiter787 In my experience, older women are the primary audience for simple point and clicks. Shovelware feels like it's the appropriate word.
@@nathandts3401 Shovelware how? Feel free to look them and and feel they're shovelware. 😆
Nice DF Retro episode for this classic PS2 title.
😂
Running via emulation with RT mod..................................................wait a minute.
Gollum is a perfect metaphor for the torture of terrible PC ports that Alex has had to endure this year
I remember when people wrote that PS5 is more powerful than most PCs,.. and now when i see this game and how bad it performs, holly hell. How and why do people actually spend money on this garbage game. Even some cut scenes look like 10..15 years old.
@@3komma141592653 But the PS5 is more powerful than 99% of PCs on the planet.
Yes, this game is a disaster though.
@@AJDOLDCHANNELARCHIVE It sure is not
@@kiisseli1337 Do you realise the specs of the average PC?
@@AJDOLDCHANNELARCHIVE 😅 logically, the Nintendo switch is also more powerful than about 90% of PCs on earth. Doesn't change the fact they're both glorified leapfrogs with wifi
I was recently watching someone on Twitch playing this game on pc and everry time they died the fps got worse for some reason until it was looking like a PowerPoint presentation. This is truly one of the games of all time
It means when the game reloads itself its not properly garbage handling something.
The fact that Gollum from 2014’s Shadow of Mordor looks better than him in 2023 is crazy
Your comment sums up majority of modern AAA games.
@@DragonOfTheMortalKombat Sadly
the very least the developers can do at this point is to put together a post mortem video documentary that explains what happened here
Publisher greed and incompetence of a team who never worked with this genre, that's in short.
Unfamiliarity with UE, new genre, pandemic. Their writing is still good, Gollums monologues are great.
Don't care, Daedalic Entertainment's first title was Edna and Harvey: The Breakout, one of the best games I have ever played. Don't care at all about Lord of the Rings.
@@MelindaSordinoIsLiterallyMe You don't care, or they didn't care? Grammar, please.
@@AJDOLDCHANNELARCHIVE he's just copy/pasting into each negative comment smh.
Wow I had no idea it was THIS bad. I've mostly just skimmed through reviews on Steam but this is another level.
It blows my mind that modern consoles *still* struggle to run games at 60 FPS @ 1440p. Meanwhile I'm enjoying a solid 120+ FPS at 4K in nearly *every* game on my PC! If I can't get at *least* 90 FPS on a PC game @ 4K, then I won't even waste my time on it. Can't believe that console games are coming out on a freaking PS5 and *still* struggle to maintain even 30 FPS with ray tracing! Pathetic! What happened to optimization?
@Psythik there are a crapton of amazing PC new releases that won't run at a solid 90+ fps at 4k lol, you are full of crap and being extremely hyperbolic. Even with the best intel or AMD processor and a 4090, there's plenty of games that won't even get 60 at 4k, it's simply too taxing.
If you need 90+ fps at 4k to play anything, then you must only be playing older games and twitch shooters and such, because most solid rpgs and such nowadays can't do 90+fps at 4k with the best of pc hardware available right now
You had yes idea though.
@@Psythikis your pc worth $500? are you running native 4k? are you using a midrange amd gpu like the consoles? you're right to question optimization, it's a fact most developers nowadays are garbage at it regardless of it being almost inevitable because stockholders are rushing them to release unfinished products. gamers have to stop paying to be alpha testers if they want to make those greedy publishers understand they're not turning a profit unless games are polished upon launch.
@@PsythikThe entire consoles cost less than a high end graphics card. It's not too surprising that 1440p is the best they can do at 60fps.
You buy a console and you're paying for convenience and the first party exclusives.
I'm so excited for the Switch version of this game, just because of all the fun videos that's going to produce.
This amazing game will work amazingly when it comes out on Switch, the developers have already apologized and are hard at work on patches. In a couple of months, all gamers in the world will be playing it with great pleasure.
Mark my words.
@@theprofessor2062 New to gaming ?
@@lostpattern9407 😂😂 i think he is and the way he spoke seems like these words are comming from a kid
@@theprofessor2062 you forgot the /s
@@EVPointMaster doesn’t need it, it’s obvious enough
I feel like I’m in a twilight zone episode with all of these poor game releases.
It would be the Twilight Zone if they didn’t exist.
Never expect much from these studios that just exploit huge IPs
In Night Springs!
Were in the dark time line
but dlss and frame generation will save the pc version- nvidia probably
I think Sony should take it off the Market like they did with Cyberpunk 2077.
Cyberpunk was a technical feat of a game it’s Sonys fault they can’t feed the peasants with high end hardware while charging 200$
@@ttghhgg1918 No, it was CDPR releasing Cyberpunk two years too early
@Tt Ghhgg nah that game was broken on every platform, PC included. Just a buggy mess with a bland gameplay. Story was cool, I'll give you that, but that's as good as it gets.
@@ttghhgg1918 it's fine now, so clearly it was the games fault, not sonys. though for 200 you're right that you cant expect much lol
None of the platform holders, especially Sony care in what messy state something on their platform releases as long as they dont compromise security of their platform or have really troublesome content for them. Sony only did that to Cyberpunk because it had a huge opening and hype around it, leading to angry mobs wanting their money back and bothering their customer services too much. So it was simply easier to deal with by just tempoary remove it.
Sony wouldnt care for Cyberpunk if it had the same interest (basically none) as this. Sony is happily advertising Life of Black Tiger after all.
So basically dont expect platform holders to take action unless they feel forced to.
I love the positive thing you found about the game: "Plus the concept art included in the Deluxe edition does give a fascinating insight into what could have been." :D
That itself, is a feat.
In Shadow of Mordor PS3's defense, despite all the cutbacks and poor performance, it was a valiant effort porting it to an aging console known for being difficult to work with. This game, however, is inexcusable.
Frankly, the last gen ports should never have been made. I think WB Games did realize that after the fact but hindsight is 20/20.
Valliant effort? Wouldn't say so. Didn't seem to have much effort behind it at all. Metal Gear Solid 5 was done better on last gen.
@@WH250398 MGS 5 was built with ps3/Xbox 360 in mind unlike shadow of Mordor which was built with ps4/Xbox one first in mind. Not the same situation at all.
No. Shadow of Mordor is a thoroughly 7th gen looking game with some upgrades for 8th gen.
It should have not run that disastrously on PS3/X360. Whoever did the port or WB didn't bother with actually putting out a great port.
The 360 version ran pretty good despite the 30 seconds menu loading every time you pushed the start button
One thing to also note about this game: Gollum cannot kill orcs wearing a helmet
The audacity for this game to describe anything as “quality mode”
Seeing all these closeups of Gollum's bug-eyed freaking out face is hilarious
Gollum in the thumbnail: "No bitches?"
Looks like Daedalic punched way above their own weight with this one. It's cool that they explore new territories, but this is just awful. I really hope they will recover from this because their point & click adventure games are usually fantastic and they play a significant part in the adventure revival.
It's true what they say: Schuster, bleib bei deinem Leisten.
Ich stimme dir voll und ganz zu, mein Bruder in Christus.
Well, my only experience with Deadalic was Deponia on PC and I couldn't finish it because of bugs. Many people experienced the same problem and the developers couldn't fix it, they just uploaded a save allowing players to bypass the problematic section. So it's not like the company has a great track record.
Nearly all of the people responsible for their point and click adventures are already no longer at daedalic. They all left since the buyout from nacon. Even Poki, one of the devs who wrote many of their games, voiced characters and sang the songs, left three years ago.
@@Speedkomodo I did not know that. So basically the quality already started to drop, and Gollum is the peak of it all.
Only encountered on bug in my 10 plus hour through on ps5 and no stuttering at all.Its actually a good parkour focused adventure game,with good dialogue between Gollum and other characters.Decent stealth and puzzles.The art style and level variety is well done as are certain set pieces.Its not nearly as bad as people claim and was actually pretty good.Seems people expected something different then an adventure game,where upset with the shitty PC version and dlc bullcrap,or just jumped on the hate bandwagon watching a few vids instead of playing post patch update.Easy 7 out of ten for me ,will put it on the shelf with my hundred of other games to enjoy in future playthroughs...Much Respect to the studio for their unique vision and experience playing as Gollum..
I really want a PS1 demake of this, it'd be a genuine improvement.
You could probably just port it over to PS1 and not see a difference.
Just wait for the Switch version to come out
How dare anyone release a game in a state like this?!?!
You have it the wrong way round, there all released close to this condition, its finding one that isn't...well Zelda TOTK takes that prize.
Because these games are targeting general audiences and casuals. People that don't follow gaming or tech news and usually plays like 1 or 2 games a year. They see LotR name in the cover in the retail store and they buy.
@@bluestar5812 there are movies that target general audiences and casuals film goers, but a film as bad as this game is just doesn't release.
You mean so masterpiece? I agree, people don't deserve that kind of gold.
@@theprofessor2062 lul
This game should have been either cancelled or sold for 20$.
20 dollars is still a lot. 5-10 would be more appropriate.
Maybe.?.... $1.99 instead.
F2P with Microtransactions, like hairstyles for Gollum
I’m waiting for the $4.99 sale myself.
They will not get a penny more from me.
2$
I love how all the questions he ask already were answered with the footage in the background🤣
Well to be fair, that is usually the case with Tom's videos. Whenever he asks these questions, you usually get the broad answer by looking at the footage.
At Forspoken launch: this is obviously the worst game of the year.
At Redfall launch: This is obviously the worst game of the year.
At Gollum launch: This is definitely the worst game of the year?
Forspoken redeemed. 😂
It's a 'from frying pan to fire' generation 😂😂
At Starfield launch: here it is!
@@Vsevolod3788
In Starfield’s case I think that’ll blow over pretty smoothly because people expect an obscene level of jank and bugginess in an internal Bethesda project.
I vividly remember Skyrim on PS3. And that was an absolute nightmare of a port.
Still better than New Vegas on PS3. It’s my favorite Fallout game, but I had the misfortune of playing it on PS3. I was so jealous of my friends on 360 and PC because their versions were just mildly janky. My version was full on disaster.
@@OrtadragoonX They spent an additional 10 months working on it; you'd hope that the significant bugs would be fixed at that point (though they may keep in some "fun" ones because that's what people expect at this point).
Testing this game must truly felt like going to mordor.
Best comment in history
Looks like it was never tested.
@@ericwalker6477 Like simply walking into Mordor!
@@Justforvisit ONE DOES NOT SIMPLY TEST
I actually just got a pre-roll advert for this game lmao
"I had to delete my PS5 save and start all over again, which isn't great.' Tom, master of understatement!
People tend to say the graphics of this game are PS3 level or whatever but tbh, I could name over 100 PS3 games that are actually quite beautiful and even have better textures. Like you cant tell me Gollum is on par with Killzone 2.
Certainly most of the major first party ones I can think of. Metal Gear Solid 4. God of War 3. Heavenly Sword.
And yeah I get it, first party AAA vs third party AA, unfair comparison. But... all of those games we just mentioned are over 12 years old lol.
It's also just no excuse. Go look at gameplay of Styx: Shards of Darkness, and compare it to this. That's a similarly themed Unreal Engine 4 game from 5 years ago. Also made by a AA studio with budget constraints. Even just from CZcams videos you can see that game is leagues ahead of Gollum both in terms of visuals and performance.
UE4 might be a spotty engine, especially in terms of the visual fidelity to performance ratio, but plenty of smaller studios have made it work.
It reminds me a lot of Styx Master of Shadows, which was an awful indie stealth game from the early 8th gen.
What I dont get is that if you want to make a LOTR game featuring Gollum.... Why on earth not from the time when he still had the ring? With the ring you could have made stealth sections that made actual sense... Also, with the ring Gollum would have been able to fight creatures much stronger than him. You could make interesting mechanics, like the more you use the ring, the crazier Gollum gets, with like weird hallucinations or something. Or perhaps introduce special beings from the spirit realm like the wraiths who can only see him when he has the ring on, forcing you to switch between both worlds. Knowing when to use the ring or when absolutely not to and look for another solution, sounds like a very solid gameplay foundation for an adventure game with platforming and stealth elements.
Also it would allow us, as players, to use the actual freaking ring and play around with its awesome power... I mean... it sounds like a no-brainer to me... And it would have made total sense within the Tolkien canon... Gollum had the ring for a long time and did all sorts of crazy stuff during that time. You could start the game with him finding the ring and killing his brother Deagol and end the game in the cave with Bilbo, so perfectly framed within the bigger story.
Also from a narrative perspective it would have been great... We could have seen a original take of how someone goes insane, as the ring slowly takes over Smeagols mind and turns him in to Gollum... Perhaps to tell a more universal tale beyond the character about the phenomenon insanity in general. From that perspective the story would have been just as much about the ring itself as about Gollum, surely a much more interesting proposition for any LOTR fan. The only reason why Gollum is a part of the story and why he is even interesting as a character is because he had the ring for so long anyway. Gollum could have been the narrative vehicle through we, as players, could have experienced what it must have been like to hold a ring of power with its terrible influence. Gollum would have been perfect for that because he isnt a Nazgul or great Elven Lord or anything... He could have been anyone so perfectly suited for this role.
"Why on earth not from the time when he still had the ring? With the ring you could have made stealth sections that made actual sense..."
It's a good idea, but it flies in the face of canon. We are told that the reason Gollum didn't turn into a wraith, despite possessing the Ring for so many years, is that he *didn't* use the Ring often after his banishment. But more than that, I think turning the One Ring into a gameplay device cheapens it - unless it comes with some kind of risk/reward system. For example, using the Ring too frequently should result in damage to Gollum's stats (maybe it lowers his endurance?), while you get bonuses for completing sections without resorting to the Ring. Basically, the Ring is so overpowered that you should use it as little as possible.
@@jamesgravil9162 Yeah thats what I tried to think about. Using the ring might attract wraits or something, or cause like weird hallucinations, or speeds up the transition from Smeagol to Gollum which comes with potential downsides. Basically, like a sort of super buff that you can only use for a short time. I mean, thats not not-cannon and offers a lot of possibilities gameplay-wise. Sounds a lot better than anything the actual game does right? :P
This developer is mostly known for point and click adventure games. I don't understand why they didn't just make a telltale/life is strange style adventure game in a 3D space instead of a weird platformer/stealth game.
"Deep down here by the dark water lived old Gollum, a small slimy creature" 😉
I'm sorry you had to endure so much of this monstrosity. You're doing the lord's work.
What's religion got to do with it?
@@RetroJack relax chief, it's a fuckin goof
@@RetroJack What's love got to do, got to do with it?
Ran great on PS5,..absolutely not stuttering and only one bug at chapter 3.Was a very enjoyable parkour focused adventure game,not nearly as bad as people pretend
@@frankbasile3662 this says more about your standards than it does about the quality of the game.
This game was the game of all time. The characters did some things. There was action. Gollum was in it. There was gameplay. The music played. Dialogue was spoken. Score/10
I was looking for this comment.
But for $dollars more, you can hear dialog spoken better. Will you please give more $dollars?
Developing game (for many people) became ONLY connecting colored blocks and mark checkboxes in a game engine. It explains many issues in performance. It has a price.
AI gotta step it up
10:11 truly a mordor experience
You can save 20 minutes. The answer is yes, yes it is a total disaster.
Nah I want to enjoy the disaster breakdown :)
@@Ben-kh7wh same
Fun at parties
I wonder if alex will be forced to play this nightmare on PC? 😅
more interested into ps4 version
I genuinely think this game was the developer biting off more than they could chew. Dadelic had never done anything this ambitious or with this kind of scope before, and I think that lack of experience resulted in games that look and feel unfinished on every platform.
Yeah me too. TBH I pity them. This is perhaps standard case of bad management and decisions.
@@BoyProdigyBabyI pity the regular ppl that saved money so they could buy this $60 "game"
What’s ambitious about it?
When he said it’s designed like a PS2 movie tie in he wasn’t kidding.
@@iHaveTheDocuments who the hell would save money for this.. I can't think of anyone who wanted this. Let alone willing to pay $60
How is this game ambitious? This game looks like a DS lite game from 2007, and I hope Dadelic never make another game again. I cant believe they managed to produce a bigger dump than Redfall.
Haven’t seen PS3 graphics like this since Final Fantasy Stranger of Paradise.
Sméagol convinced the developers not to kill the bugs
Nice one!
Ironically even though it has that PS2 cheap license game feel to it the actual gameplay reminds me of nothing but bland AAA games from the 360/PS3 era. Super on rails and the stealth and platforming lack any depth whatsoever. Even if it wasn't a buggy mess there would be nothing fun about it unless you're really into that style of game we've thankfully long since moved past.
I think Lichdom: Battlemage has finally found its match.
But it looked better - just had performance issues!
Or am I remembering it wrong?
Gollum in the Thumbnail: "No Precious?"
Tom, I cackled when you included "convince SMEAGOL to kill the beetle and hide!" just so, so funny
I thought Gollum would be the type of story that would change depending on your choices
In the trailer when confronted by orcs Smeagol wants to hide but Gollum chooses to fight
I assumed that you would have the option to choose certain paths like a Smeagol route and a Gollum route and it would change key points throughout the game
I don't know...is it just my selective view, or are we really in a period of time where Games don't really look that great but still can't manage acceptable performance, even on high-end PCs?
Sometimes even Hardware several generations newer than the Game itself can't run certain titles at a solid 60...with GPUs that cost a small fortune...
I feel that
It's the obsession with ray tracing in most games. It requires $5k computers to run smoothly but barely makes a graphical difference. Not talking about this game tho, it's just an unfinished piece of trash.
That's why I stopped bothering with buying games. PS plus extra is all I'm comfortable with for now.
I said this in 2021. For the graphic improvements people want, the hardware does not currently exist. We didn't need a new console generation, and we are playing with software tech that isn't usable yet.
This is the only reason upscaling tech is so focused on right now. Because without it graphics needed to stagnate for a while.
The problem is, AAA developers have for the most part made garbage for years with only a few standouts, and Nvidia has to fund software tech advances to sell their graphics cards.
Reasonably, games need to start focusing less on graphics and more on what they can do with their power. But most AAA games have game designers who know nothing about game design. The industry is reliant on novelty and is running out, so its pushing itself into a crash.
Hardware is not the problem here ;-)
Gameplay wise it *looks* a lot like a generic Tomb Raider game. The difference is that the Tomb Raiders games sometimes have good puzzles, and the levels generally give you some idea of where you should be going. Not always, I'll grant you, but most of the time. From a technical point of view, I hope the develeopers can carry on optimising the game, and get enough of a frame rate boost that they can bring back the raytraced shadows, It does look halfway decent with those shadows enabled, we just need to get a decent framerate.
Plus Lara on tight pants or shorts
@@CYB3R2K Gollum is showing a lot of skin, that might do it for you.
@@AFourEyedGeek smack that Gollum ass
Glad I'm not the only one that thought Tomb Raider.
You mean Tomb Raider games hold your hand?
As soon as game doesn't hold your hand,then it's bad?🤔
Have you seen that No Man's Sky has been officially released for Macs? I'm really curious about the performance and the MetalFX upscailing, I would love a video from you guys
thats actually super interesting
Gaming on a MAC.....what will they think of next?
@@davewills6121 gaming on mac is perfectly fine. Now, with MetalFX it’s even better and easier for developers than ever.
Been gaming over 30 years and I never experienced such a pityfull state of affairs.
Where have you been lately?
Agree.
I'm sad Gollum turned out this way. Gollum's story had good potential for a sympathetic villain, and the platforming could've been cool if it was well executed
I agree. I have always been interested in what happened to Gollum before the Lord of the Rings. I think the books mentioned this in one line. It looks what we have here is greedy bosses forcing a game release when it is clearly in an alpha stage at best. Charging £60 for this rubbish is an insult and will hopefully punish them for their poor greedy reason for releasing this when clearly the game is no where near close to being released.
>"But you need 24gb 450w GPUs and 300w CPUs to play latest and greatest releases just so you can match the consoles"
>Meanwhile here's how "Latest and Greatest Releases" look and run
My eyes cannot bear all this beauty🙄
I doubt there's a community for it, but it's interesting to imagine hobbyists taking this over and turning it into something decent.
LOTR Gollum speedrun be like open game and hit exit in the main menu lol
I think that if you took Barbie horseback riding for PS2 as a base game and developed it further, you'd have a better game than this piece of fecal matter.
Hobbyists ? Did you mean to say Hobbits?
I liked this game...
@@bobtom1495 Do you like eating trash too or just putting it into your brain?
I just saw what is being reviewed and thought: "Damn, that's gonna be a blood bath. Why even beat a dead horse?". So sad that Daedalic wasn't able to make a good game out of it.
We can't just celebrate successes & ignore failures. That's not how learning happens. Gotta analyze mistakes if you want to avoid them in the future!
CZcams served up a Gollum ad before this video. Someone is wasting their marketing dollars 😅
I've noticed that CZcams is zooming thumbnails in such that part of the title text is getting cut off. It might be a good idea to add a 10% "no-go zone" around the border of thumbnails for text to avoid that.
A lot more effort was put into this coverage than the game itself!
Kind of sad actually. I’ve always considered the Lord of the ring games to be very visually beautiful. So I assumed that this was going to be the case for this game. So I was shocked at how horrible it looked on post glance. I was really looking forward to the game. Because again, the Lord of the ring games had a pretty good storyline. I really liked Gollum. And was looking forward to playing it. Oh well.
Man, those games are made by different developers. Gollum developer bought the rights and made their own, it doesn't have anything to do with the older LOTR games.
@@LionMob I didn’t say they were the same developers. I’m saying the franchise has a history of producing good games.
Also Digital Foundry should absolutely make "Frametime, hitches!" T-shirts. (I'll see myself out.)
And the people saying ubisoft games are badly optimized ? 🤣🤣
Ubisoft games aren't badly optimized.
They're just bad.
the engine is the problem with ubisoft
@@daserfomalhaut9809
At least playable
@@bradhaines3142
Well i can't say no to that but it's gets the job done
I'm surprised they got the spelling of the Character' s name right.
You have to wonder how both Sony and Microsoft respectively cleared the game for release given the significant technical issues.
Nope. The process is known. Look it up!
They cleared cyberjunk 2077 so nothing shocks me
@@Th3Fly1ngCow Cyberpunk did get a "pass" for its pedigree, they promised they would fix the issues and because it was such a massive release. It's the kind of release that if only one platform has it, the other stands to lose a lot.
Gollum is mostly just a bad game. It's not up to MS and Sony to stop bad games from releasing since they don't have anything to lose with smaller scale releases.
Money, baby!
@@Ayoul dude their is no pass for bad it was on ps3 it got delisted from the store lolz
It's kind of hilarious looking back before the PlayStation 5 in series x were even announce that this was everyone's rumored preview into what next gen would look and be like. Considering the amount of programming nightmare failures that happened, maybe it's a little too prophetic.
These were supposed to be 4k 60fps machines lol for aaa releases.
@@evostu7814 No amount of power can mad eup for poor management and shitty coding.
@@evostu7814 In terms of hardware they technically _should_ be capable of that assuming the game in question is well optimized and not wasting a ton of resources on frivolous effects. iirc the PS5 and Series X are both running about the equivalent of a Radeon 6600XT an Ryzen 3700x. Meanwhile the series S has a weaker GPU (I'm not sure what that one compares with), but the same CPU.
Problem we've got right now is that optimization and properly managing the effects budget of game engines (especially UE4 and Unity) is basically just not a concept most game developers seem to be capable of grasping right now. And it has been that way for a few years now.
Things are bad on PC too, worse even in many cases, but at least on PC you can brute force your way through most of these issues with powerful enough hardware. You absolutely should not have to though. Realistically this Gollum game, if it was actually made well, should be running 120fps+ max settings without raytracing on anything above a RTX 3060 and Ryzen 5600. Without hitching or stuttering.
Golum, the first true next gen title. 😂
@@yewtewbstew547 The PS5 is about a RX 6700 non XT, while the Series X is more like a 6700 XT in terms of teraflops. They've stated that the Series S is on par with the Xbox One X, so about an RX 580.
2:14 Huh, I've seen a lot of people playing this who didn't like it, but thought the climbing parts were TOO obvious, not hard to see. It looks like everywhere you need to go is painted on way too obviously.
We should all appreciate Tom for suffering through this game so we don't have to.
PS: Is the thumbnail a reference to that megamind meme or just a coincidence?
No framerate?
I just wanted to say that your picture is one of the best albums ever. I randomly discovered Milton Nascimento a few years ago and Clube de Esquina No 2 has moved me to tears multiple times from it's sheer beauty. I don't even understand the language, the music is enough.
Tom is so good. Best in DF.
Agreed. Hands down the best.
The Digital Foundry crew are awesome, and Tom is one of the OG MVPs!
Some game devs don't even bother testing there games before releasing it full price
When the developers asked themselves how they could match Shadow of Mordor they played the ps3 version. I'd say they succeeded in matching that version especially on series s.
This is a nice warmup preparing for the inevitable Starfield analysis. Can’t wait to see how choppy and broken that game is.
And when it comes out swinging you’ll just go back in your cave.
There’s literally no reason to believe it will.
Why expect/hope for the negative?? Hope that Starfield is good, so that everyone gets to play and enjoy a new game.
@@Marty6804 apart from literally every Bethesda studio release ever. Of course those games were great, but from a technical perspective they were buggy af
@@TheBean87 u wish😏
Oh man, Tom took one for the team there, hopefully he enjoys his time with Street Fighter 6.
I was never going to buy this game, but it’s still a damn shame, I hope Daedalic will recover.
Developer to employees: Hey, great news, we got the license approval to make a Lord of the Rings game based on Gollum.
Employees: Horray!
Developer: What's our actual talent level to know what type of game we can actually aim for?
Employees: We can give you slightly better quality visuals than the Spawn movie from the 90s and we don't mean the cool cape parts.
Developer: We're doomed.
Great analysis and no punches pulled. I feel bad for developers knowing their game is going to be put under a microscope like this while their execs want the game to release
I feel much more sorry for people who handed over their hard earned cash for it.
@@caseypenk people need to work. Sucks when you’re at a company you like and you’re doing something you don’t believe in but want to feed your family
@@IHeart16Bit consumers should know better than to preorder. The reviews and gameplay is enough to conclude this is not for most people. Developers are however trying to make a living
@@caseypenk also there were surely some bad devs on the game. I feel bad for a good dev who has to work with people who don’t know what they’re doing, and bad management
I don't think anyone on the team had an ounce of passion to put into this game, very sad
UE4 has had capsule shadows since UE 4.7, they're not even present on an UE 4.27 game, pfft.
If they had stuck to their Point & Click expertise, they could have made a real good story driven game out of this with a nice drawn look to explore Gollums world. Why they went completely out of their field of experience with a big license like this is beyond me.
Whenever I hear Gollum's _"Potatoes?"_ line in the movie I'll chuckle and think of the textures in this game.
With the Ring's of Power and now this: LoTR has taken a massive hit as of late🤣
Everything about this game just baffles and amuses me. Genuinely curious how this got made.
1.) Be a 50 man 2D point and click game studio in germany.
2.) Be past yur prime
3.) Get bought out by shady publisher.
4.) Get forced to make a 3D AAA Lord of the rings game with just a 5 milion budget and no expirience
“I have been falling … for 30 minutes!”
Funny starting the review with that mention because this reminds me of an early PS4 game basically a PS3 version with higher resolution and better texture filtering but nothing else thats a gen ahead and the character modeling and animation is just strange
The game looks like they was struggling to develop it, and didn’t know how to finish on time because they got not much time
Would love to know the development story behind this one
Team that's never done anything like this pushed to do it/being too ambitious, plus publisher pushing heavy advertising and full price for what should be a $20-30 title max.
90% of budget to get the LotR license and characters, 9% marketing, 1% for the actual game. Maybe that's why the game was made by a borderline indie studio that only prior experience are point and click games.
It was a grab for government handouts. They got millions from Germany's budget, so they don't need to care whether gamers like it or pay for it
Don't Sony and MS have some sort of quality control for what they put on their respective stores? Who thought that this disaster was acceptable for release?
Gollum is going to be Game of the Year 2023!!! Facts!!!
Fuck Yeah!!!!!111
@@theprofessor2062 I’m actually being serious.
@@Mitch93636 Me too!!!
GOTY LETS GOO!!!
(garbage of the year)
@@Lyaagato you can laugh! The developers will release patches and all players in the world will play Gollum all year long. And then we will ask you: WHO IS LAUGHING NOW???!!!
I suspect the story here is how complex game development is today, it's a fine line to walk to make A or AA games.
Bruhh making games like this one is easier than ever. It uses Unreal engine which is open. Visuals look like trash as if only free assets were used that too not properly, game is laden with bugs. RT and SSR don't require much effort compared to rasterization. Simply blaming game development= complex is making fool of yourself. WE have had much better games in terms of graphics, physics, stability, un-bugginess in the past. The problem isn't game development, the problem is soulless studios and management.
Do we really need raytracing for reflections on flat surfaces like water and puddles? Half-Life 2 could do water reflections back in 2004. And what about that spartan hair simulation? Prince of Persia could do something as convincing way back in 2003. I'm getting the feeling developers are overenginering things these days.
Half Life 2 reflections are less a good example of good and more the stuff they got with Source 2. Almost as efficient, drastically better, and almost as good as ray tracing.
Ray tracing is a comically wasteful tech achieving a minor effect that could much better be achieved with cheap technologies and good visual design. The problem is that those take a lot of work, why ray tracing is really easy and quick to implement (if you dont care to optimise)
This really feels like a retro game, like trying to run an old 2005 game on my awful 2003 pc with a cheap celeron processor.
2023 - the year of incredibly optimised games.... Said no one ever
Tried this on PC and was able to brute force my way through performance issues thankfully getting 150fps with RT enabled. Good thing too cause it showed me I needed to uninstall it. I knew it was going to be bad just 5 minutes in when I saw a nicely ray traced reflection in a puddle that was _on a slope._ I told my wife this looks like a PS4 game, only to find out later that's exactly what it was.
I try to ignore reviews and spoilers for many games when today's pessimistic gamer always wants to burn new releases at the stake cause it doesn't run at 4k/120 on their 2070 super. I have a strong enough system to use raytracing when it's available so I'm usually immune to performance issues. I'm quite forgiving on games as I don't care about bugs and poor graphics as long as there's solid gameplay. And this is where Gollum's _REAL_ weakness lies. Gameplay is so laughably dull and linear. I'm fine with linear if they're holding your hand through having fun, but this was a slog through 2002 mediocrity.
No amount of patches and optimization can save this dumpster fire when the core gameplay is deeply flawed and uninspiring. I wouldn't play this again if I could run it at 4k/360 with RT maxed. It truly deserves the terrible reviews it's gotten and more reviews need to focus on the game itself rather than the shitty performance, because that aspect isn't getting any better.
Calling this a PS4 game is an insult to beautifully made PS4 games like Arkham Knight, GoW, Spider-Man, TLOU2, GoT, Horizon, RDR2
@@EfecanYSL See that's one of the weird things about this game. Some assets look _really_ good while others are deep in PS4 territory. It's like they had 2 separate teams working on PS4 and next gen, and the next gen team ran out of time so they plugged in the models they didn't finish from the PS4 version to shove it out the door. The character models are especially bad when they should be the highest priority.
Digital Foundry "It is worth checking out"
Me : "No, it really isn't".
Quality without RT and just 1440p. Gosh, what a distaster for a PS2 looking game.
It seems that developers are having a hard time with the new machines.
New machines? They are already 2.5 years old.
its not because of that its due to games being too rushed and being fixed a year later through patches
It’s a good looking 2006 Xbox 360 game
Gollum looks like what I imagine of a kid growing up playing Fortnite
Daedalic should have stayed with their 2D adventure games. Not the best, but at least good enough
I'm surprised you covered this. Props for putting yourself through that for our benefit.
I feel that a game like this is great at exposing how ray tracing is still way too early to be implemented in real-time. Even on PC with much better hardware, the trade-off with ray-tracing isn't worth the marginally better visual boost. Sometimes, ray tracing looks worse than the methods we already have. Even if you prefer how it looks, the fact that a PS5 game in 2023 is releasing for $60 and it runs at N64 levels of frame rate is just unacceptable.
To be fair to the technology, hardly any lightning designers really know how to use RT properly yet, & it's often combined with basic static lighting & baked lightmaps so it never really gets to show off how impressive it can look. It requires a whole different approach to where you put the lights & how far they cast though, & that takes time to learn when you're used to the old ways. I think, as more devs & designers learn how to properly utilise it, they'll be able to do more impressive looking stuff with fewer light sources. Hopefully we will start seeing more experimentation soon instead of attempts to just plug in ray traced reflections & shadows to the same environments.
@@nightcatarts You're not wrong, but these consoles aren't powerful enough to really do ray-tracing justice. Even PCs aren't quite there despite the 4090 making a compelling argument. I believe that developers should be focusing on performance over a slight uptick in quality, though I suspect it really is publishers demanding crap like this.
@@KingSigy Yea I agree that it's not quite there, but it can remove the need for different frame-stealing visual effects entirely if it's applied properly. Some AO is still required because the ray & bounce count is too low, but a baked lighting pass & associated material layer can go (unless more favourable than active AO where that could instead be baked), untraced shadows can go, untraced lights can be removed entirely & replaced with point flares, etc. None of those things seem to really be getting done in RT-on modes, so the extra drag of the old tech is applied alongside the drag of the new tech. I think there's plenty of scope for optimisation but it does mean reworking everything specifically for ray tracing.
@@nightcatarts Part of the problem is that ray tracing is way too expensive to be the sole lighting option, but also only works unless a game is visually designed with it being the sole lighting option.
This is why Metro Exodus Enhanced removed non-RT mode. If they wanted the game to look as good as intended with RT, they needed to not support conventional lighting.
When your serpentine belt snaps, and you decide its okay to leave your engine running.
So to sum it up, another perfect candidate for Mount Doom lava.
I've said this before but Gollum is if the gaming industry suddenly forgot more than 20 years of experience
I've said it before but Gollum is 20 years ahead of his time. The next generation of gamers will appreciate this masterpiece
@@theprofessor2062 nice joke
Glad tom was willing to specifically wait for a PlayStation patch but not for Xbox. Nice one Tom.