I spent a pretty good portion of one of the episodes of the Low Priority Queue shitting on the whole fantasy genre because it hasn't evolved since the days of Tolkien. But, I have to admit that the world Tolkien built was pretty deep and elaborate. I found myself just eating this game up, so much was done so right with this game I can't help but be grateful for it and just enjoy it.
The sandbox action adventure genre seems to most ubiquitous genre after the first person shooter genre when it comes to triple A developers and publishers. That isn't a bad thing for the former since sandbox action adventures are pretty much the only genre were the triple A folks can still outclass the rest of the industry in. Bringing our focus back to the game itself, the original game developed by Monolith Productions and published by Warner Bros. Interactive, came out in 2014 with the last DLC coming out in February 2015. I bought and played the Game of the Year edition on my PC through Steam and that did not come out until May of 2015.
I wouldn't call myself a fan of Middle Earth, but I definitely did enjoy the 'Lord of the Rings' movies and I am a fan of the depth it has in order to produce multiple other books and movies such as 'The Hobbit' and 'The Silmarillion'. With the game being from such a rich world it was easy for the developers to craft a fairly robust world for the player to run around it and fill it with some memorable characters unique to the game itself before having to bring in some of the most established characters from the rest of the Tolkien world. I don't exactly know if of the material brought up in the game does qualify as LoTR cannon, but from what I saw it seemed to fit in quite nicely. The background of the main character is a bit cliche, in that Talion had a dark past before even having his family murdered by orcs in front of him, but I didn't mind it to much. The world did feel fairly empty though, at least it did besides the orcs. I even remember a distinct scene where one of natives of Mordor was dying and it being played up to be a dramatic scene, the problem was he looked exactly like the dozens of other humans in Mordor aside from the five or six main characters so that death was pretty meaningless. The story for the most part was adequate, I think I enjoyed it more since it filled in the gap of who and how the ring of power was made more that I did the actual narrative in the game, it is also most likely the reason I enjoyed the DLC where you get to play as Celebrimbor himself the most. But, in both the game and its DLC the impact of the story was hampered for me since I found the game to be really easy in terms of its mechanics, but that is a point I will get into in the next paragraph, so even in the large climactic boss fights never felt threatening and despite them supposedly being with massively powerful bosses and Sauron himself, which was visually fantastic, it just didn't land or feel like as important an event was taking place as I felt the game wanted to project.
I definitely did appreciate the attempts to try and make the world look alive though. Aside from the game looking and sounding quite good and feeling very visceral like any triple A experience should be, there were a number of attempts that tied the story, world building and gameplay itself together and that is what made the game feel great for me. The biggest part of this is of course the Nemesis system that the developers had created for the game where the Orcs in the game were given an internal hierarchy with internal traits and power struggles that were happening independent of you at the start but as the game goes on you could start to have some very direct influence on. The Orcs captains and war chiefs were also given memories so that they remember encounters and the rests of those encounters which increased their level of characterization and my engagement with the game, especially when one of ugly ass mother fuckers called me a coward for running away since I was in the middle of a quest the last time I came across them. The biggest thing for me though, was the pomp and circumstance fighting on of these orcs captains carried with it, there was intro music, their names and personalities played a part in the fight and it felt like an event when you came to take one of them down. Hell, some of these orcs were even harder to kill that some of the bosses in the game. It was a great experience that I have no seen in a stealth game since the first Assassin's Creed game as most games now have you treating these narratively and game play wise important fights as non-events and then try to do a cut scene to get you to care about what just happened. Shadow of Mordor on the other hand built a whole world and system to bring these enemies to life and I really appreciated and enjoyed that part of the game.
Now, while I did take my first punch at the mechanics in the game only a little while ago. I actually didn't hate them, you can even, maybe, potentially say that I mildly enjoyed them. The sandbox action adventure genre has for the most part developed a substantial amount of pillars of things to do, just look at Mad Max, Assassin's Creed, Far Cry and so many others and you will notice these games are almost carbon copies of one another when it comes to world design and combat mechanics. I personally even like to call Shadow of Mordor by the name Assassin's of Middle Earth and I don't mean it as an insult since I like both it and the Assassin's Creed series. Getting to the actual details, the combat in Shadow or Mordor is for the most part melee based and it uses the free flowing fight system with counters that people at Rocksteady created with their first Batman game. As a results while the fights do feel natural and quick, if you get good at the pulling off the counters like I did the game become hilariously easy with you easily being able to jump into forty or more orcs and just wiping. The way the upgrade system is designed as well essentially has you growing in strength as you complete more of the game, however, the enemies don't really grow in strength with you meaning that at some point in the game you will start feeling extremely overpowered compared to the enemies that used to give you a hard time. This can both be seen as a good or a bad thing, I viewed it positively as the game was that long, I got 98% of the achievements in under twenty six hours and was done with the game at that point. If the game ran any longer than that though I could definitely see myself becoming bored with it.
Despite the fact that I found Shadow of Mordor to be a pretty easy game when it came to its combat mechanics and its story was a little shallow. I still really enjoyed the game a lot and I had a really fun time playing it. The world just seemed alive thanks to the Nemesis system the developers put in the game, and the whole pomp and circumstance around even major fight with an Orc captain just made me really engage with the game and imbued each and every orc decapitation with a hugely satisfying feeling as I cut my way across Mordor. I personally enjoyed both the DLC packs that came with the game as well, despite the fact no major new mechanics were introduced in them their narratives served to bring the period of Middle Earth the game introduced to life. This game is an easy one for me to recommend and a strong contender for game of the year in my books.
The sandbox action adventure genre seems to most ubiquitous genre after the first person shooter genre when it comes to triple A developers and publishers. That isn't a bad thing for the former since sandbox action adventures are pretty much the only genre were the triple A folks can still outclass the rest of the industry in. Bringing our focus back to the game itself, the original game developed by Monolith Productions and published by Warner Bros. Interactive, came out in 2014 with the last DLC coming out in February 2015. I bought and played the Game of the Year edition on my PC through Steam and that did not come out until May of 2015.
I wouldn't call myself a fan of Middle Earth, but I definitely did enjoy the 'Lord of the Rings' movies and I am a fan of the depth it has in order to produce multiple other books and movies such as 'The Hobbit' and 'The Silmarillion'. With the game being from such a rich world it was easy for the developers to craft a fairly robust world for the player to run around it and fill it with some memorable characters unique to the game itself before having to bring in some of the most established characters from the rest of the Tolkien world. I don't exactly know if of the material brought up in the game does qualify as LoTR cannon, but from what I saw it seemed to fit in quite nicely. The background of the main character is a bit cliche, in that Talion had a dark past before even having his family murdered by orcs in front of him, but I didn't mind it to much. The world did feel fairly empty though, at least it did besides the orcs. I even remember a distinct scene where one of natives of Mordor was dying and it being played up to be a dramatic scene, the problem was he looked exactly like the dozens of other humans in Mordor aside from the five or six main characters so that death was pretty meaningless. The story for the most part was adequate, I think I enjoyed it more since it filled in the gap of who and how the ring of power was made more that I did the actual narrative in the game, it is also most likely the reason I enjoyed the DLC where you get to play as Celebrimbor himself the most. But, in both the game and its DLC the impact of the story was hampered for me since I found the game to be really easy in terms of its mechanics, but that is a point I will get into in the next paragraph, so even in the large climactic boss fights never felt threatening and despite them supposedly being with massively powerful bosses and Sauron himself, which was visually fantastic, it just didn't land or feel like as important an event was taking place as I felt the game wanted to project.
I definitely did appreciate the attempts to try and make the world look alive though. Aside from the game looking and sounding quite good and feeling very visceral like any triple A experience should be, there were a number of attempts that tied the story, world building and gameplay itself together and that is what made the game feel great for me. The biggest part of this is of course the Nemesis system that the developers had created for the game where the Orcs in the game were given an internal hierarchy with internal traits and power struggles that were happening independent of you at the start but as the game goes on you could start to have some very direct influence on. The Orcs captains and war chiefs were also given memories so that they remember encounters and the rests of those encounters which increased their level of characterization and my engagement with the game, especially when one of ugly ass mother fuckers called me a coward for running away since I was in the middle of a quest the last time I came across them. The biggest thing for me though, was the pomp and circumstance fighting on of these orcs captains carried with it, there was intro music, their names and personalities played a part in the fight and it felt like an event when you came to take one of them down. Hell, some of these orcs were even harder to kill that some of the bosses in the game. It was a great experience that I have no seen in a stealth game since the first Assassin's Creed game as most games now have you treating these narratively and game play wise important fights as non-events and then try to do a cut scene to get you to care about what just happened. Shadow of Mordor on the other hand built a whole world and system to bring these enemies to life and I really appreciated and enjoyed that part of the game.
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| These scenes just felt so great. |
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| This is a lot easier than it looks. |
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