It’s only a few minutes into the opening that the station is attacked by a force of Uruk led by three highly powerful captains, who the leader is the Black Hand of Sauron. Players are thrown into the boots of Tailon, a ranger captain who has been stationed at the Black Gate. There are some liberties taken with certain well-known characters, but I wouldn’t say it’s enough to cause you to shout in anger about them being disrespectful to the literature. There is a sense of importance behind what the developers, Monolith, were crafting with the story, as they worked with the parent company of Tolkien’s universe to discuss and develop a story that would fit in the universe without disrupting the canon. Instead, this is a game that takes Assassin’s Creed open world climbing shenanigans and blends it with the Batman: Arkham combat system, while adding its own cool attacks and twist on enemy behaviour to offer a very exciting title that makes travelling Mordor one full of adrenaline fuelled mature fun, while making players feel like a one man badass.Īn exciting premise is that Shadow of Mordor is an original story that fits between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. This is a game set in the world of Tolkien’s Middle-earth, but this isn’t a straight-forward Middle-earth title that you have seen in Lego form or back in the early-to-middle 2000s where EA was releasing hack and slash titles featuring the characters from The Lord of the Rings films. This is a game that doesn’t hide its roots it’s not embarrassed about where it has borrowed mechanics from other games that have inspired it. Shadow of Mordor is a triumph, its final irony being that it’s arguably the best and most pure Assassin’s Creed game to date.Within the first 30 minutes of playing Shadow of Mordor, its core DNA is clearly apparent. Unfortunately, cracks start to show toward the end, where things get a lot more cutscene heavy, boss fights start relying heavily on QTEs, and your previous machinations aren’t shown to have any tangible effect on the final showdown.īut, as with The Lord of the Rings itself, it’s more about the journey than the destination. Each side of the equation depends on the other. SoM’s story is split evenly between the Nemesis System and scripted missions. Later on, you get the ability to “dominate” Orcs, making them your allies, which opens up another dimension of scheming. Defeat them, and they might survive, returning with a fitting disfigurement and some choice words about just how much they hate you. You can then interfere with their internal squabbles, ensuring that the biggest pushover attains dominance. A huge part of SoM is about exploiting the Orcish lust for power, pitting Captain against Captain to shape battlefield politics in your favour.įor example by gathering intelligence you can learn the combat weaknesses of individual Captains. It is through this system that the game really shines. Completing them provides you with upgrades but also a sense that you are fulfilling some kind of prophecy.īut more integral to the expert blending of plot and emergent gameplay is the much-touted “Nemesis System”, which populates the world with procedurally-generated Captains and Warchiefs that form the Orc command structure. Challenge modes, for instance, are presented as opportunities to “forge the legend” of the weapons in your arsenal. The open world is packed with distractions from the main story, but almost everything you do feeds into it. It’s surprising just how good and inventive Shadow of Mordor is. Shadow of Mordor is an Orc army on a disc, packaged with the tools and contextual excuses you need to wage a bloody one-man war against it. Forget the Tolkien association, and put aside its similarities with Assassin’s Creed (for now).
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |