Gollum, Gollum... Gollum. It's finally out, but like his precious ring, maybe it should've stayed in the cave. It's already the lowest-rated game of the year, helped by our own Features Editor Ben Sledge who scored it 1.5 stars, simply stating that it "is not a good game". Those words ring true as nobody can get over its barebones UI.
The initial trailer from the "pre-alpha state" showed Gollum overwhelmed by stylised options fluttering across the screen. Ideas like "Don't hurt us!" and "Calm down! Quiet! Orc will hear us!" danced around his head as he contemplated what to do in an understandably stressful situation.
It looked pretty good, but the final build has a much lower-quality Gollum squatting next to the two options listed on his left, with everything plastered onto a dull brownish background. The options also use Calibri, making it look like a dodgy PowerPoint presentation.
That's not the only bit of UI people are making fun of either. In a situation where Gollum is face-to-face with an Orc, you're given three slapdash options, "(Give bread)", "(Threaten)", or "(Beg)", all of which use the same standard Calibri font over some transparent grey smudging.
Former Features Editor Andy Kelly highlighted as much, but also went as far as to swap the font out and add a subtle drop shadow to highlight how barebones it really is.
Interestingly, while both examples of the UI above use very simplistic, modern fonts to convey dialogue options, the subtitles don't. They instead use a fantasy-inspired font that is much harder to read, which goes against the entire purpose of subtitles.
Elsewhere, others are simply having fun with what the UI actually says. (Beg) has become an overnight meme, while the objectives and reminders are entertaining plenty.
Gollum is a bit of a mess, to put it lightly, and the UI is just one of the many things that didn't hit with so many people, but at least we got a few gems out of it.