The events of Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor take place sometime between the events of J.R.R. Tolkien's 'The Hobbit' and 'The Lord of The Rings' and being only compactly versed in the universe, I was understandably confused. I had to take to reading up on my lore and enlist the expertise of a friend and former co-worker in which my love of all things James Bond is paralleled to her love for all things 'The Lord of The Rings.' That, my friends, is literally the only real downside of this spectacular title.
I think the best thing about playing Shadow of Mordor is that I feel incomprehensibly powerful against the opposition but one is still fearful of defeat and for good reasons. Shadow of Mordor is essentially the love child of the Arkham and Assassin's Creed series; it's got free-flowing combat, a beautiful open world full of Lord of the Rings lore and presents a significant challenge going forward. The number one feature, however, is a background entity: a hierarchy of enemies with their own tactics, issues, plots and ploys which literally grants both victory and defeat a substantial presence.
We're introduced to Talion, who seasoned gamers will recognise his voice as Troy Baker: Booker DeWitt in BioShock Infinite, Joel in The Last of Us, The Boss in Saints Row and Jake Muller in Resident Evil 6. Talion, a ranger captain, serves within the Gondorian garrison, stationed at the Black Gate of Mordor. The garrison is attacked by Sauron's Uruk forces led by three Black Númenórean captains; the Hammer of Sauron, the Tower of Sauron, and their leader, the Black Hand of Sauron. Talion, his wife, and his son are captured and ritually sacrificed by the Black Hand in an attempt to summon the wraith of the Elf Lord Celebrimbor. However, Celebrimbor (who suffers from amnesia due to his status as a wraith) instead merges with Talion, preventing him from dying alongside his family. Talion and Celebrimbor then depart to uncover Celebrimbor's identity and avenge the death of Talion's family.
A short and dreadful introduction sets a rather dark and brutal tone as Talion, a former Ranger of Gondor, is ritually executed alongside his wife and son at the hands of three Black Númenórean captains in an attempt to summon the wraith of the Elf Lord Celebrimbor. However, Talion’s spirit is then bound to the amnesiac elf ghost and returned to Middle-earth for vengeance against Sauron’s forces. It’s a story that doesn’t make total sense for hardcore Tolkien scholars nor the ill-versed but it’s well-done either way.
Shadow of Mordor has evidently taken cues from the Batman: Arkham and Assassin's Creed games in a small number of instrumental influences. Like in Batman, you can choose to pick off enemies one at a time through stealth or dive right into a brawl, surrounded by the enemy and take them out with fast and fluid attacks and counters. What Shadow of Mordor does even better, though, is the inclusion of fantastic and gory decapitation and stabbing animations. Sword combat feels pretty much just as good here as hand-to-hand combat does in Batman. Mordor’s take on building up hit streaks to power up lethal takedowns is a bit more forgiving, in that you’re almost never locked into an animation. If you push the counter button, Talion will drop what he’s doing and counter instantly. It's a nice relief and it's unbelievably responsive.
Having taken notes from Assassin's Creed, you're able to quickly and fluidly traverse the environment; free-running over obstacles to pick up speed, scaling virtually any wall present to get somewhere quickly or to a better vantage point and even use special kills and attacks. What I found to be incredibly tantalising is the ability to essentially take a leap of faith off of any high surface, do a somersault in the air and land without effort, much like the Death-Dealer, Selene, in the first scene of the Underworld film.
Shadow of Mordor's feel of combat is quite different than that of most, however; it's incredibly easy to find yourself outnumbered even early on in the game. If an uruk raises an alarm in a stronghold or if you just happen by a large group of them, you can quickly become overwhelmed by more enemies than you can hope to handle. Picking out the shield bearers and ax-wielding berserkers who are immune to frontal attacks and killing them first becomes tough to do when you’re completely surrounded, and it goes downhill from there. Health doesn't regenerate much on its own and you'll soon find yourself falling to the blade of your enemy...and surprise! You're given one last stand; a brief pseudo-QTE allowing you to counter your enemy's killing blow and get back into the fight. Just don't mess up this second chance, because you won't get a third.
Of course, it gets relatively easier once you start levelling up Talion and what's a good RPG without an equally-as-good levelling system? The system in Shadow of Mordor is quite excellent, really; it's simple, intuitive and has a pretty menu design. Unlock more of Talion’s skill tree and you can build up combos quicker, execute two enemies for the price of one, and even fight mounted on a huge, carnivorous creature that'll eat uruks as if they were McNuggets that were going out of style. The player has the option to level up the abilities of Talion both as a ranger and as a Wraith through two distinct skill trees. Ranger abilities allow Talion to move silently through environments without attracting attention, while Wraith abilities allow him to impose his will on enemies and have them gather information for him, spread tales of Talion among enemies to decrease their morale, or assassinate their leaders.
The one feature in particular that got me doing a little dance was the hierarchy system, and even though it's a pretty simple one when you understand what it's doing and realise that the captains and Warchiefs aren't really roaming the map in real time, it's a substantial contribution. Uruks have an internal power struggle for rank and advancement and you can interrupt their duels, feasts, hunts, and more to pick fights and kill off Uruk captains and ultimately the powerful Warchiefs. Each captain has his own randomized strengths and vulnerabilities, so every fight is at least a little different. I had one encounter with Such-and-Such Head Slasher or something of the sort who liked to run and flee when victory was out of his grasp. Of course, I gave chase and lost him. I wasn't letting that go without recourse, so I tracked him down and encountered him again, in which he made a comment of our previous encounter. After turning the fight in my favour, he fled once more and escaped, as he was immune to ranged attacks with my bow and arrow. Lastly, our final encounter was to be remembered and I wish I used the "Xbox, record that..." feature when I had the chance. As he was about to flee a third time, I easily caught up to him thanks to an upgrade and grabbed him from behind, stabbed him repeatedly and, in irony to his name, decapitated him.
Most uruk captains tend to die too quickly to really be a memorable event, but some certainly were. I had one captain survive his "death" and came back with a scarred face. For that reason, and to identify the arrival of a significant threat, I never really got tired of the action-pausing cutscenes that play when a captain shows up. There are enough different voices and multiple possible lines that I rarely saw repeats, and the uruk faces are surprisingly well animated and expressive. What's really cool is that whether you win or lose a fight, something interesting happens. In victory, the uruk captain will drop a rune that can be slotted into one of your weapons for bonuses. If you're killed, even if it's by a random grunt, he levels up, earns new abilities, some new armour and may get promoted up the chain of command. You'll definitely run into him again later to settle the score and he'll have a new introductory taunt about his victory over you. It makes each death feel like a personal vendetta.
Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor stands out from other open-world games by significantly improving an already-great formula. I couldn't believe how much fun I was having and how well-integrated the brilliant combat was paired with the rewarding feedback for both myself and my enemies. While the randomised and unpredictable battles with captains and Warchiefs are more memorable and fun than the scripted campaign missions, it still serves as a legitimate reason to keep playing and playing...and playing.
Unfortunately, the open worlds in games like Middle-Earth: Shadow of War, Halo Infinite, and the original Assassin's Creed do more harm than good.
I legitimately loved Halo's switch to open world. They made traversal of the map entertaining, and everything involved just tied into the (what I consider) awesome gunplay.
The entire time I really felt the slow takeover of the map, and all the little steps forward felt satisfying.
I don't know what more people really want there, considering the setting and story. A handful of soldiers hunkered down on enemy territory; slowly trying to win the battle.
I agree I liked the switch to the open world, it was large with beautiful land scapes. However, it did feel a bit empty, and wasn’t as action packed as I would have liked. A lot of the bases felt like fillers instead of something of wonder. Let’s see what 343 under new management does from here cause Halo needs some updating
I'm surprised they scrapped the Slipspace engine. I thought the graphics looked great, the sandbox physics were as good as ever, and the AI worked well. Clearly a lot of work went into it and it appears to have been optimized for the new generation of GPUs. The only issue I had with it was the lack of environments, would have been cool to have different biomes on the ring to explore. A bit more variety in missions would have been nice, maybe some timed events where you have to manuever a banshee through forerunner architecture or some mongoose speedruns would have spiced things up.
I think R* are the only ones who have made compelling open worlds. I can’t stomach most open world games and how boring they are with busy world. It’s like a flex to make this massive environment, but it’s extremely boring to traverse and play in. GTA V and Red Dead Redemption 2 blew me away with how incredible their worlds were. Elden Ring was the only other game to give me that sense of awe.
GTA V and unfortunately, Saints Row the original have had some of the most aggressive open world features where the world doesn’t feel so bland. To me what makes GTA V so special is the way the characters react to the world around them vs how the world reacts to them. For example, in GTA when you switch to Franklin and he walked past an attractive female he responded “ damn you fine” or in Saints row you can run up in the pawn shop flash a gun and watch them respond by raising their hands in the air, or they press the silent alarm making you have to run away from the cops. Halo infinite doesn’t have those kind of moments that make you feel apart of the world it just feels like it’s there.
Trevor talking to random vegan npc: "You suck c*ck, but you don't eat meat.... It don't make sense to me "
Classic. Such a shame we won't get that humour again now that R* have gone all in on virtue.
AC Odyssey with the next gen patch is pretty incredible, especially if you like a sea shantie. Lol.
I’m back on an open world kick after Horizon. I don’t know what clicked in me but exploring the map and seeing the detail work has me loving open worlds again. Playing AC Odyssey on hard and really enjoying it and the map. Reinstalling RDR2 tonight because damn, that map is just incredible for sightseeing.
Halo Infinite felt off. It's like the developers didn't know what they really wanted to do
Depends on which open world titles u play, most of em are shitty AF, but I honestly admire open world genre, sometimes to just take a break from fighting and missions you explore n see details you haven't noticed before cause you were too busy body at first, then boom finding some dope equipment or things to sale
GF365: "Most games are not perfect and that may be because of a character or an enemy. Here are 10 mediocre bosses in great games."
The Pursuer from Dark Spuls 2 was great, I think the author just sucks at games.
GF365: "These are the best games based on movies. Every entry on this list will be a great video game adaptation of popular movies."
Alien isolation...ftw,it is definitely one of my top games,I played it again a few months ago ✌️
I think a 9.5 is way too high. I had this on PS4 and, I did enjoy it, however, I couldn't get over my player getting stuck on random objects, running around rocks and getting stuck, unable to move forward even tho I wasn't stuck on anything. I'd be running in an open field and my character would studder step and run, walk, run all on his own even tho I was pushing up on the L3. It wasn't my controller cause I tried it on the Last of Us. I give the game a 7 based on controls as the huge downfall. It was unplayable at points for me.
I think the game is a solid 8 - very fun to play but the climbing felt pretty clunky to me :(. Plus that ending! so so bad.