Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor - Reviews

(4.4)

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11.8.2016

Do you remember those scenes in the Lord of the Rings movies when Aragorn was kicking huge amounts of Uruk ass without breaking into a sweat? Do you remember wishing for game in which you could play a character who had those combat abilities? Well, your wish has potentially come true in the form of ‘Shadow of Mordor’ as not only do you control a character with awesome combat abilities; it's also set in Middle Earth!The game, which is set between the events of 'The Hobbit' and 'The Fellowship of the Ring' puts you in control of Talion, a Ranger (just like Aragorn) who has been brought back to life by the wraith of Elven Lord Celebrimbor, so that he can avenge the death of his family,who were killed by Sauron's evil forces. As a result, he’s immortal and able to return from death - and has been imbued with some insanely cool abilities. As you would imagine, the game is actually set in Mordor, a deeply unpleasant place which is packed to the rafters with Orks and a variety of even more unpleasant creatures - you play the role of the shadow that creeps through Mordor and sometimes terrifies its inhabitants.Before I get going with the review proper, I have to admit that this game come at me from the left of the field; I'd heard through the grapevine that it was 'good', but I had no idea at that point just how good it really was or even what sort of game it really was - so it came as a really nice surprise when I started to play it and realised that it was in fact truly amazing and surprisingly deep game to get into. In fact, I think I’m going to struggle to get all of the many facets of this impressive game detailed in this review, but I’ll do my best. Here goes…>> A bit o’ this, a bit o’ thatIn the great tradition of many adventure games before it, Shadow of Mordor is a third-person action game which features all of the trimmings and features you’d expect from a glossy, high budget production and some truly unique features which are bound to be influential to other games in its wake. It’s obvious to see the game’s own influences as you can trace the DNA from titles such as ‘Tomb Raider’, ‘Assassin’s Creed’ and I feel there’s even a little bit of ‘Soul Reaver’ in there somewhere, too.Set authentically in Tolkien’s ‘Lord of the Rings’ universe (although more in the vein of the movies rather than the books) Shadow of Mordor is set between the events of 'The Hobbit' and 'The Fellowship of the Ring' puts you in control of Talion, a Ranger (just like Aragorn) who has been brought back to life and empowered with awesome powers by the wraith of Elven Lord Celebrimbor, so that he can avenge the death of his family, who were killed by Sauron's evil forces.>>> Fight, skulk or flight?With no selectable difficulty setting, it has to be said that Shadow of Mordor can be a rather unforgiving game. I actually found the first couple of hours of playing it pretty frustrating as I could see the odd glimmer of the game’s combat mechanics and potential, but found that I was regularly being surrounded by large groups of orks and hacked to death. Part of this was due to the fact that ‘Shadow of Mordor’ forces you to learn Talion's abilities as you go and gives you very little in the way of hand-holding or tutorials, which has the effect of it feeling very rewarding once you get a hang of things. There are plenty of abilities to get to grips with, too - Talion is equipped with three weapons; a dagger, a sword and a Bow; and he's incredibly adept at using all three to defend himself.For the early parts of the game you'll quickly learn that it's best to rely on Talion's stealth abilities to move around Mordor; he can creep around in the shadows and can sneak up behind Orks to dispatch them with his dagger or thwock an arrow into their heads from high ground, mitigating any chances of getting seen. You can also get him to hide in bushes, which is an effective way of skulking around unseen. The Orks however are aware of your presence in Mordor and are constantly on the lookout for you, so anything can set their suspicions on edge. You have to be careful if you want to dispatch one of them quietly, as if one of them finds a compatriot dead he will call attention to it, meaning that several other will join him in a search for its killer. Luckily, Talion has the ability to drag them into the bushes before dispatching them, meaning that it's less likely for them to be found. When you’re not caring too much about alerting them, you can have a little fun by ambushing orks from above by leaping onto them, which usually results in an instant kill and then retreating again into cover.If you do get spotted, you have two options; run or fight. Running, as you can imagine, is very easy for an agile guy like Talion so it's usually pretty easy for him to lose the bad guys. Fighting however, is a different proposition, for when you initiate a fight with a single ork it attracts the attention of other orks, meaning that a one-on-one confrontation can quickly escalate to the point where you're surrounded by a large group of very unfriendly, very large adversaries. Even worse - if you're in a stronghold and get spotted, one of them will try to run for it and raise an alarm, which can cause every single ork in the place to come for you! In those situations it's best to either catch him before he can raise the alarm (usually best done with a single arrow to the noggin) or run for it. Should you decide to stand and fight, this is where you’ll find the game's sublime combat mechanics come into play.>>> The dance of deathYour standard one-on-one battle with grunt-level orks can be over in just a few seconds as Talion is able to completely outclass them with a flurry of sword strikes and kicks, usually ending with a leg sweep which knocks them to the ground, stunning them and allowing Talion to finish them off with one of his many gruesome execution moves. When he’s in a battle with several orks, this is when his exquisite ability to parry and counter-attack comes into play; a notification will regularly appear above his head telling you to press a key to get him to counter-attack them, which he does deftly and with great fluidity. You’ll get used to counter-attacking very quickly as it’s an intrinsic part of the combat system along with rolling and evading - you don’t have a shield to cower behind while orks hammer away at you!Not all of the orks in the game are equal - some are far more dangerous. In fact, there are four different ranks of orks, culminating in the big, bad top-ranked Warchiefs; when Talion encounters one of the ranking orks, he will be challenged to a fight, which is heralded by a short cutscene in which he will insult Talion in a variety of ways. These ork ‘officers’ have different power levels, which you’ll need to pay attention to or else you’ll find Talion getting his ass handed to him - and can have unpleasant ramifications, as you’ll quickly discover. If the ork officer is equal to or lower than Talion’s power level, the fight is on and you can attempt to fight him like any other ork. You have to be careful though, as the orks officers can be immune or resistant to certain attacks however, which can cause the fight to be over very quickly indeed so you’ll need to know when to continue the fight or run for the hills. If you manage to defeat an ‘officer’ ork, it has the effect of panicking and scattering the grunts, effectively finishing the fight and granting Talion additional points to his own power level.Another great combat mechanism is Talion’s hit streak-count, which will go up and up as he strikes his foes but will reset to zero if he takes a hit. Once enough hits have been built up, you can get Talion to pull off a gruesome mid-combat execution move, which can often result in one of the green-skin’s heads rolling around the ground. Another trick Talion can do in combat is leaping over his foes; once this ability has been gained, it actually stuns them and allows Talion to do a variety of cool things with his wraith powers - such as an incredibly fast flurry of sword strikes, a gruesome ‘brutalize’ move, or he can use his powers to literally pop ork heads like overripe melons!Of course, in addition to his many close-combat abilities, Tarion very adept with the bow. Holding down the key to aim the bow causes time to slow down to a crawl for a period of time, allowing you time to aim the crosshairs at an ork’s head, even when at close range. This can be incredibly useful if you’re surrounded by a small group as it allows you to quickly thin their ranks before you go in the sword attacks. As Talion’s abilities increase, he also gains the ability to throw wraith daggers, which staggers opponents and can be very useful if you want to quickly attack and escape or finish of an escaping ranking ork.>>> Be my nemesis?In addition to the massive groups of grunt-level orks, there are captains and warchiefs who, when you encounter them in Mordor, will call you out and challenge you. With any other game, this would simply result in a battle with a slightly tougher bad guy, but not so with Shadow of Mordor. There’s a complex and deep game mechanism called the ‘Nemesis’ system, which plots out the tribal relationship between the orks and the various rungs on the ladder of command they need to climb to become warchief.But what impact could this possibly have on our human character Talion, I hear ye ask? Well, since Talion is their no.1 target, if a lowly grunt-level ork manages to kill him, it gives him a leg-up on the ladder, which can have a direct impact on those around him. This is visualised on screen with something akin to a chess board, with the lower ranks near the bottom and the warchiefs at the top. On top of that, they also frequently attack and kill each other, leading to some interesting changes in the balance of power.It’s not as simple as rank alone however - it’s possible for a lower level grunt to get incredibly tough if he manages to kill Talion several times. In my current campaign for example, I have a mid-ranked ork who has managed to hit a power level of 20 (the maximum there is), meaning that at my current level of abilities, he’s nigh-on impossible to kill so if he challenges me at the moment I do my best to run away and hide!The Nemesis system turns what could be a standard slash’n’hack affair into an incredibly enjoyable and interesting game to play and is actually very unique; something that’s difficult to achieve in modern gaming - so major kudos to the developers for not only coming up with something original, but also implementing it in such a cool way.>>>Navigating MordorMaking your way around such an ominous place like Mordor can be a bit of a task in itself as danger can literally lurk around every corner, so as stated above you’ll constantly be relying on Talion’s stealth skills to move about while trying not to alert orks and other creatures to your presence. This is made much easier due to the fact that he’s incredibly agile and is capable of scarpering up vertical surfaces, shimmying along and hanging off ledges.As is de rigeur in such games, you have a world map which you’ll regularly be referring to, setting waypoints and marking out things of interest. Importantly, you’ll discover ‘safe’ areas in the game in the form of spectral towers which Talion will respawn at he’s killed and also allow him to fast travel to. These are incredibly useful if you’re being pursued by a large group of foes, too as they allow you to scarper up them, high up and away from pointy swords, arrows and flying axes!>>> Gameplay depth abounds!After reading all of the above, you’d think that there wasn’t much else to this game… Right? Well, actually - there’s plenty other stuff to keep you entertained. For a start, you have missions to complete which can range from simply rescuing enslaved humans to killing a given amount of bad guys - sometimes in a particular manner within a time limit. There are also missions that make up the narrative which need to be completed to drive the game’s story onwards. These see the return of some familiar characters such as Gollum, who plays an intrinsic part in the storyline (don’t worry, no spoilers here) and are very entertaining.Peeling at yet another of the many layers that make up ‘Shadow of Mordor’, there is an impressive array of character upgrades and unlockable abilities. These range from the usual health increase options to entirely new abilities, such as being able to stun foes by leaping over them or even teleporting to an enemy and performing an instant kill. On top of that, there’s a cool weapon customisation system that has unlockable perks that you can assign to your dagger, sword and bow which grant perks such as gaining health on a dagger kill and many, many more.If you’re a total completionist and an achievement hunter, you should be thrilled to hear that Shadow of Mordor has a massive range of collectible items and secrets, some of which I’m probably not even aware of myself. By using Talion’s ‘Wraith vision’ ability, you can find a variety of artifacts scattered throughout Mordor, which you can view and rotate to find a point on them which sets off an audio ‘memory’ which reveals more about Talion’s past. As a note of interest, the wraith vision ability also allows you to see enemies through walls and even gain information on them.As I said, there’s probably things I’ve missed out in this review - as the sheer variety of stuff that you can do in this game is really impressive. It’s easily one of the most immersive games I’ve seen in a while.>>> Judder of MordorOften seen as a game that’s used to test the prowess of graphic cards, Shadow of Mordor is very impressive visually, with sharp textures, very detailed character models, beautiful lighting and particle effects. It doesn’t quite hold a candle to the graphics in ‘The Witcher 3’ which still blow most of the competition away, but serve very well to convey the grim darkness of Mordor and its unpleasant inhabitants.I’m mercifully able to run the game on my recent-ish gaming laptop with it’s NVidia GTX970m at ‘Ultra’ settings with not a single judder and reliably getting around 50fps, but if you’ve got an older machine you might find it struggling a little.>>> Getting with the grotesqueTo put it mildly, Shadow of Mordor isn’t a game for kids. The PEGI-18 rating is there for good reason due to it having some rather extreme violence, as there is copious amounts of (black) ork blood being spilled, beheadings, throat slitting, stabbings, limb-breaking and some really rather brutal attack combos, so you probably wouldn’t want little Johnny getting his hands on it. Not that violence in games ever done me any harm, mind, but hey ho.>>> One game to rule them all?One game to bind them, one game to… Erm. Yes. Well, no - not quite. Maybe.Shadow of Mordor is a truly excellent action-adventure game, which grips right from the start and I’m pretty sure will keep me gripped until it reaches its conclusion - which I’ve not yet reached. The beauty of it is that you don’t really need to progress through the story as the Nemesis system makes the game entertaining in it’s own right, as you bump the ranking orks off and watch others take their places. There’s plenty of stuff in it to keep you entertained for a few weeks - months even - and no doubt some good additional content in the wings once you complete the main story.I’d give it a solid 9/10. Buy it.

18.5.2015

The history of Middle-earth video games has been patchy. Early text adventure The Hobbit was a classic of its genre and War in Middle-earth was a remarkable early example of a real-time strategy game. However, the Battle for Middle-earth series was highly inconsistent, and many of the tie-in action games with the movies were forgettable.Monolith has produced something different with Shadows of Mordor. On the surface it's an action game borrowing a lot of ideas from other franchises. The game focuses on combat between Talion and a large number of opponents, relying on positioning, blocks, chains and special attacks to survive challenging fights. These mechanics are very similar to the Arkham series of Batman games.There's also an open world to explore with side-missions and towers you can rebuild to gain more intelligence on the surroundings, lifted pretty much straight from the Far Cry series. Although Talion is formidable in battle, he can be swamped easily in long fights so there is also a strong stealth focus similar to the Assassin's Creed games.However, Shadows of Mordor rises above its influences to become more interesting than it first might appear. It helps that it was created by Monolith, a talented video game company responsible for some of the finest first-person shooters ever created: the FEAR and No-One Lives Forever series, the early and influential Blood games and the awesome (and sadly never resurrected) SHOGO: Mobile Armour Division, which mixed up the FPS and mecha-piloting genres fifteen years before Titanfall. Monolith handle the transition into third-person combat quite well and bring their formidable experience to the game in the form of visceral, solid and satisfying combat and a genuinely new and gamechanging mechanic: the Nemesis System.Shadows of Mordor features a lot of orcs. An absolute ton of them, in fact. And they're not all mindless monsters. As the game progresses, the orcs gain experience and skill and climb up through their hierarchy of chiefs, captains and lieutenants, murdering and backstabbing one another as they try to gain personal power and influence. For the first third or so of the game, Talion's interaction with the orcs is limited to parting their heads from their shoulders. Later, thanks to his possessing elven wraith spirit, he gains the ability to magically take control of some of these orcs and swing them to his will. Apparently unwinnable fights can swing in Talion's favour by him reconnoitring enemy strongholds first and stealthily taking over multiple orcs. When the fight finally starts, he can unleash his own army of traitors. This becomes more complex when Talion starts taking control of lieutenants and captains, being able to arrange for them to turn on and betray their chiefs and putting Talion's own catspaws into positions of authority.This system can be turned against Talion, however. An orc who "kills" Talion in combat (Talion is always resurrected thanks to the handy elvish wraith) gains experience and prestige, climbing the ranks and possibly displacing Talion's own minions. As the game progresses this interaction becomes quite elaborate, and Talion losing a single fight can push his entire web of alliances and betrayals out of synch. Adding a yet further layer of complication is that the orcs have different strengths and weaknesses: some are only vulnerable to fire or stealth and some are invulnerable to takedowns or finishing moves. You have to gain intelligence to find out an orc's weaknesses before either killing or enslaving him.This results in a fascinating and - for a time - engrossing amd complex game of Orc Career Ladder Simulator, as you turn enemies against one another, sneakily arrange for massive Red Wedding-style orc betrayals and generally pull a lot of strings from behind the scenes. When your plans work you can't help but feel like a master manipulator. When they don't and you have to re-enslave half of Mordor's orcs just to bring down one annoying captain, massive frustration can result.The Nemesis System is a genius idea, backed up by very solid combat, but after a while the game's other flaws come to the fore. The biggest problem is that this is an open-world game, but the world is tiny. There are two maps and both can be crossed from one side to the other in minutes. The spirit towers are so close you can almost jump between them and the massive number of orcs versus small number of locations results in multiple orc captains sharing the same strongholds. Ludonarrative dissonance (the clash between the game's narrative and actual gameplay) is a problem in most games, but, particularly in its second half, in Shadows of Mordor it becomes a near-constant problem. The maps should really have been four or five times their size to really sell the idea of Mordor as a vast, teeming network of competing orc clans.The other problem is that the game prioritises planning, intrigue and betrayal but then relies way too much on luck. A simple stealth attack on an orc general might result in a fight against him and a dozen bodyguards, or three other captains might stumble on the fight halfway through resulting in what feels like the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, but with only one person fighting the orcs. This can also dramatically affect the game's length: I've seen people beating the main story in well under 20 hours but others constantly getting their plans thwarted and having to invest over 50. And the repetitiveness of the combat, the lack of variety in objectives and the tiny maps makes this a game that definitely needs to be shorter rather than longer.There's also the storyline, which on the one hand embraces some of Tolkien's obscurer storylines (bringing in Celebrimbor, forger of the Rings of Power) and restraining the appearance of movie characters to basically one, lore-appropriate cameo (Gollum, although Sauron and Saruman have very brief appearances) but on the other embraces full-scale blood-letting and slaughter. Tolkien certainly wasn't above doing the gritty, dark stuff (more in The Silmarillion than the later books, it has to be said) but Shadows of Mordor wades through the grimness until it starts to get a little bit comical.Shadows of Mordor (***½) is certainly one of the more interesting and smarter Middle-earth video games. The action is solid and the Nemesis System is engrossing (expect to see variations on it popping up everywhere soon). However, the maps are too small, the tone is far too grim and the game crosses the thin line between challenging and monitor-smashing frustration a few too many times. A sequel (which the game groan-inducingly teases in its final moments) with a bigger map and more variety could build on the systems here into something truly special, but for now Shadows of Mordor is a solid game with a genius central mechanic let down by some design problems elsewhere.

19.10.2018

In Shadows Of Mordor, you play as a Ranger called Talion. In the introduction, you see him and his family are killed in a ritual by “The Black Hand of Sauron”. However, Talion finds himself left in limbo and is guided by a Wraith spirit named Celebrimbor; the forger of the rings of power. Talion gains the Wraith's supernatural abilities and goes on a quest to avenge the death of his loved ones.There's gonna be a lot of comparisons to Batman's Arkham series or Assassin's Creed since the game involves a lot of stealth and a lot of fighting. The fighting plays out the same as the Arkham games but the pace is slower/more realistic; sometimes Batman jerked about unrealistically,whereas in this game it is much smoother. Landing several hits without taking damage allows you to perform finishing moves. You have a punch move that stuns enemies, allowing you to quickly slash away at them to quickly increase your combo.The Arkham series was like Assassin's Creed in some ways. So you have stealth with an Eagle Vision/Detective Mode vision that allows you to easily locate enemies and items, there's plenty of treasures on the map (Artefacts and healing plants), and climbing large towers unveils the map and objectives. You even get to take a unrealistic dive from them just like Assassin's Creed.Talion is equipped with a sword, dagger and bow. You use your sword in combat, dagger for stealth kills, and bows for long range sniping. When he draws his bow, time slows down but drains your focus meter. This allows you pull off many head-shots in quick succession.The “Nemesis” system is a much talked about feature of this game. There's a hierarchy of Uruk's which shows who is in control. You gain Power by defeating them which gives you access to new abilities. You can interrogate “Worms” just like the Riddler Informants in Batman Arkham City. This gives you info on the Uruks, stating their strengths and weaknesses, giving you hints in order to take them down. Some are immune/weak to long range, stealth or finisher attacks, whilst others are scared of the beast creatures or weak to explosive damage.As you play the story missions, this Nemesis system is explained to you. At first, I was doing the side missions, so when I was killing these Uruks, they just seemed to respawn and I'd run into them again. You have 4 levels of Uruks, and the higher ranking Uruks can have body guards in the levels below. In order to take down the Chiefs, you need to learn who their body guards are, their weaknesses, and take them out. Later in the game, you have the ability to “Brand” them which means they fight for you. This gives you a much bigger advantage in taking down the Chiefs. When time passes, Uruks can be promoted, and new Uruks fill the space of the dead ones.The Uruks (excluding Chiefs) can pop up unexpected. I was on a side mission where I just had to take out 10 archers with my bow, and 2 Uruks showed up. When fleeing, another joined in. This unpredictability creates some really intense scenarios but also some large difficulty spikes. You often need to take advantage of your surroundings, looking for opportunities to unleash caged beasts, cause explosions, or drop a Morgai fly (like bees) nest onto your enemies. This can damage them, or cause them to flee battle. You need to also consider when to flee too. Should you be defeated, the Uruk will get promoted and become stronger.A tactic I liked doing is fleeing to higher ground. You have to be wary of archers or thrown axes, but once you reach higher ground, the Orcs lose sight of you very easy. This means you can rejoin the fight with a stealth kill (or more).Initially, the game seemed easy as you can take down Orcs with ease. However, once you get other types such as Archers, Berserkers and Shielded Uruk-Hai, then the difficulty increases. It can start to get easier towards the end of the game when you unlock more finishing moves, as well as the Brand ability to gain a small following.The game loves respawning Orcs. Even if you take 50 of them down, more will come flooding in. It's often a fight you can't really win. When completing missions, the game like to respawn them. I took down loads of Uruks in a mission, only to be surrounded again once the mission was completed, so had to partially fight my way back out. I understand there's loads of Orcs in Mordor, and they will call in reinforcements (a flame icon will be displayed over an Orc who runs towards the beacon). However, the level that it does it is just often unrealistic or unfair. This leads to frustration and also makes the the game feel repetitive.Most of the game sees you navigate ruins, cliffs and ground. It's all brown and dull. I guess you are in Mordor. Later on you do see some colourful settings, but it is a similar aesthetic. There's only a small amount of supporting characters too, so you are often on your own. I liked the music in the game, and the chants that play when you meet an Uruk leader are really cool.When you gain experience and level up, you get a skill point to unlock a new ability in the skill tree. The tree is split into two; Ranger and Wraith. Although it looks like you get to customise your character, each level of abilities is unlocked after you earn enough Power. You end up levelling at a pace where you end up unlocking most abilities on that tier before unlocking the next tier. This means that you don't get to customise your character as much as it appears.When you defeat the Uruks, they drop a rune which can be assigned to your weapons which give you all kinds of perks like health recovery, focus recovery, defence or attack power. This gives you some extra customisation and some give scope for strategy.Shadows Of Mordor has a few limitations, but it borrows elements from successful games and improves upon it (I prefer this over the average Assassin's Creed game). The combat is very satisfying, but there's a lot of it. The Nemesis system is a cool idea, but I think it would mean everyone's experience with the game is slightly different, and it is interesting how some people claim the game is too easy, while others found it very hard. I found it a mix of both, but I liked the unpredictability. The ending is really disappointing and doesn't involve much combat at all, when I expected a really epic battle.

21.1.2015

I actually bought this game in order to test out my new GTX 970 graphics card, what I found was much more than just a test. I'm not a huge fan of lord of the rings but I have a feeling I should've paid more attention given how much I've enjoyed playing this game, and how deep it actually goes. In short however, nobody will be disappointed by this games graphics, they are beautiful and the depth of field is HUGE. I won't go into detail but every scene I see to oozes detail and is crystal clear. a GTX 660 will play this at high no problem at all, but a 970 will make a big jump for you if you've got that level of card, ultra at 90FPS no sweat.You are Talion,a human ranger whose been killed at the hands of an evil elf along with his wife and son, unlike them you've been banished from death along with an elven blacksmith whose name I won't give away, that would be spoiling things. Being banished from death sounds grim however it yields several advantages right from the start. You can fall or jump leap of faith style from any height and you'll land comfortably with no damage, you have focus thanks to your ghostly partner enabling you to slow time whilst aiming arrows, but the most important advantage is you simply come back every time you die, no penalty for dying either apart from maybe a few orc captains will gain power. One of the most awesome abilities are your methods of interrogation, but no spoilers because it's going to make you feel God-like. You will often hear the orcs talking about your exploits throughout the game based on how you fight and what missions you've done, for example; "Heard that damn ranger was caught ridin' on the back of a graug! I don't care, jus' means he'll fall further when I knock him off!". Uruk Captains will also remember if they've killed you once already, and will obviously be quite cocky about it should you encounter them again, time to get revenge!As the title of this review says, this game takes some of the best mechanics I have ever seen from all of my favorite titles. The combat feels like it was lifted straight out of Batman: Arkham City, re-balanced and more forgiving I think. You are now able to counter attacks even if you've already committed yourself to attacking another, your elf friend will pop out of nowhere and block the attack so its not like Talion has 8 arms, I find this awesome but some of you pro Arkham players may find it annoying because it doesn't test your skill. There's finishers, multiple ground takedowns again exactly like Batman. What isn't like Batman however is you (unlike batman) are not almost totally invincible, you cannot take on 50+ orcs all at once with a couple captains and hope to survive, you will get over run. I like this personally as it's a little more realistic and means you may need to escape. Free running and jumping appears to be taken straight from an older Assassins creed game, only a lot of extra bloat removed, this system is simple and works, never have I accidentally jumped or fell in the wrong direction. The only thing wrong with this I'd say is, your basically Spiderman's ancestor. I count TWO walls I've seen that Talion couldn't immediately climb up, seriously you can scale almost ANYTHING, and he leaps up making it look ridiculously easy. The mission system to me also looks like it was lifted from Grand Theft Auto, head to a marker on the map and activate the mission, extra missions appear based on what you see and what you do, for example freeing some slaves may reveal a further mission, all of which have their own rewards.I don't want to continue and risk spoiling anything all I'll say is if you like any of the above mentioned games this one MUST be added to your collection. Keep in mind though this game is HUGE, if you download from steam which I did, it's 40GB, it took my fibre broadband several hours to get through it, but it was well worth the wait.

23.11.2014

Maybe you're in the same boat as me? I can't afford a brand new rip-roaring PS4 just yet, so what's the next best thing? Yes, that's it - simply buy the game for the PS3 and still enjoy the game (just not on the latest and greatest hardware, right)... I'll wait until the kids leave home and then get myself a new console. But in the meantime, "it's go with what ya got".OK, OK. So everyone is complaining about two things. Let's get them out of the way:1) Loading time - yes it's a bit slow here and there, and the map screen pops up after a few seconds and needs a few seconds more to get you back into the game. I'm sure there is a technical reason for this, as it's quite annoying I'll admit but really?- do you think they'd keep that in the finished product if they didn't have to? Maybe it's something that can be patched later? Maybe not. I just don't think it's a deal breaker, when you get the same game as you would on the PS4.2) Choppy graphics/sound - I've experienced choppy audio a few times but again is this such a biggy? It does sort itself out if it happens, and again does it really really really matter? Maybe it will get patched in the future, right?So there you have it - the bad points that everyone is winging about are really not THAT bad. Well, I don't think so anyway. If you're playing and the delay from map to game is annoying you then why not use those few seconds to have a sip of lager or something? Otherwise you have to pause the game to get a gulp, right?And as for the game itself - I'm having a great time having a go beating Orcs then biting off more than I can chew and getting killed by Ladzug the Lazy or Ganash the Angry, who get promoted to Captain and then you REALLY want to get your revenge and get them back!I like the hierarchy concept and the way the baddies get stronger if you get killed by them and promoted up. It's all good fun for revenge killings, and isn't as polished as Assassin's Creed maybe for the stalking atop buildings and so on, but the game play is similar here and if you're a fan of that then this is also all good. Melee is also similar to AC I would say and is great fun too since you have to save your points in the game up to purchase your ability points to get different skills and special moves and awesome brutal combat finishers. Remember to gain intel on your nemesis first, to exploit it and have more of a chance of getting a cool rune for your weapons...I've been playing the game only for about 8 hours now I think - and I'm still wincing, oo-ing and aaaa-ing at the finishing moves that seem to be different all the time and are satisfyingly brutal. Excellent fun - trouble is I can't stop thinking about them and often picture how I would be doing them myself. You know how it is, getting obsessed with it like that. Situations can get out of hand, like stalking silently and then shimmying past the wife in the kitchen to get to the fridge and thinking about sweeping her back leg, pushing her off balance whilst turning her over face plant and finishing with a cucumber sword decapitation move. Intel on the target? Will Rage on empty lager bottles in bedroom, weakness to shopping on the internet and eBooks. What the hell are you doing now? I'm "collecting a rune" from your broken corpse of course <waves hand over head> Er, oh and can I get some milk from the fridge sorry dear. Thanks .So yes - overall, this isn't that bad guys - everyone seems to be slating it for long loading times and choppy sound whereas I just don't think it's that bad. In fact, I feel it's a fun game and I'll be playing it for a good while to get my revenge on those pesky Orcs! If you like 'classic' Assassins Creed combat and game play with a twist then this is for you.

4.10.2014

This was a really unexpectedly great game. There are a few things to note:Combat - awesome, essentially Arkham but with swords and arrows and a lot more violence. The sheer volume of enemies on screen at once is astonishing, I'm talking over 20-30 plus enemies at a given time with more filling in to replace those you take out. It's incredible. The downside is, it is quite easy - harder than a game like AC Black Flag but still a bit too easy for my liking. There is no adjustable difficulty. There are a nice variety of enemies that require different strategies to beat which does add to it. One thing I also didn't like was how in battles involving your troops and the enemy,it can be quite difficult to differentiate between friend and foe and you may score a few accidental hits on friendlies.Performance - I have a higher end build with a R9 290. I try to achieve 120 frames always and never noticed a significant drop in either level at the highest settings (incl. AA 2x in AMD's Catalyst Control Center, but shadows on medium (couldn't see much difference between high/ultra)) even with multiple enemies on screen. Great port, works fantastic with mouse/keyboard or controller.Graphics - I don't think I've seen visual design quite as beautiful as in this. The rolling hills in the background, the structures in the foreground and the characters are all top-knotch. When you see this game maxed out it really delivers something special, and it's artistic style really stands out. The graphics and audio really create an atmosphere of dread, and are brilliant regarding immersion.Nemesis system - I think this was actually overhyped; it doesn't have as much depth as you might think although it is still a really awesome system to have. You basically have the big war chiefs, and you want to get your guys (who you can control after unlocking a few story missions) either to that level, or change the war chief to support you by battling them, weakening them and then "mind controlling" them in battle. You can then reinforce them with additional, lesser ranked troops. They will spawn a variety of missions in the world which are really fun, usually regarding powering them up or killing their rivals and weakening Sauron's army (although I never really noticed this effect of weakening his army).Boss battles - these are pretty laughable, and there is a LOT of scripted events in this game which make them far too easy. Spoiler: You face Sauron at the end, and it's literally tap a few buttons at the right moments. Really disappointing with how he was built up to end like that. The bosses leading up to him require more combat, but again are too easy.Story - I found it to be really interesting, especially with how it ties into the over-arcing story of LotR and the Second Age. Talion is far from a one dimensional character like many other games, and the voice acting is nothing short of brilliant from everyone included. As mentioned above, it really isn't challenging though. My main complaint is this game is far too easy. My second is the story is really very short and it won't be long before you're reliant on the relatively repetitive Nemesis system and side missions for fun.Customisation - visual customisation is non existent, though Talion will likely have a few more skins in the future - player customisation works well, the abilities you can upgrade are really quite inventive although I recommend never upgrading health as otherwise, too easy. Weapon customisation is essentially placing runes on your weapon, giving them special abilities. These are essential for combat and work really quite well.TL:DR: A solid game, just a bit too easy and not enough content.

9.10.2014

Where to start?.. Up to three weeks ago I was using a 360 and had been monitoring the releases and future releases for Xbox One. I wasn't expecting to pick one up until next year when Batman: Arkham Knight would be released, however, an opportunity presented itself and a purchase was made for my next gen console.I quickly went to Amazon and purchased Tomb Raider: Difinitive Edition, and was blown away at how good it was, having already played Tomb Raider on the 360 (reviewed some time ago now). I had my eye on Shadow of Mordor for a while on my wish list for future games and having the console, decided to pre-order. So very glad I did.Like many of the reviews already written,this is a single player adventure set between the battle of the five armies and the begining of The LOTR trilogy. You play as Talion, a Ranger, who is made to watch his wife and son slain by the Black Hand before having his own life taken. At this point I saw many similarities to the Soul Reaver games (please Crystal Dynamics, I would love to see Raziel on a next gen console), the shifting between worlds with his alter-ego Celebrimbor, a wraith elf who is joined with Talion in the same body.The movement of the characters is very much a combination of Assasins Creed and the Batman: Arkham games, so lovers of those games will take to this very easily. The combat is also a mixture of both, though nearer Batman: Arkham, with a few extra combat controls thrown in. You have your basic weaponary, sword, bow, dagger, all of which can be upgraded through runes which are found through killing orc captains as you progress through the game. Secrets found in the spectre realm will increase XP which allow you to upgrade your abilities.You can upgrade both human abilities and wraith abilities, human abilities include health and focus, whilst wraith abilities allow you to do amazing moves such as stealth strike/kill (aim your bow at an enemy and instead of firing the weapon, you can materialise in front of them and take them out). You can also brand an enemy which allows you to take control of them, order them to attempt to assasinate another orc Captain or Warchief, then sit back and watch their battle unfold!In addition, the Nemesis system allows your defeated foes to remeber your previous altercations, to the point where they now have additional scars from your battle and if you defeat them a number of times, it appears they attempt to seek YOU out. What this effectively does is to change the game each time you play it. Each decision you make will impact on how you progress. In effect, you will never have the same play through twice!The game is graphically fantastic, nothing looks out of place and every effort has been made to make the environment look as real as possible, from the bushes and plants, to the roughness of the rock faces. This is truly a submersive story that entices you in and leaves you wanting more, and unlike 'Watch Dogs' this game came very very little hype and not a lot of advertisement, very much coming out of the 'Shadow'..This game, for me, is every bit as good as Tomb Raider, every bit as enjoyable as Batman: Arkham, and as big as Assassins Creed.. I highly recommend this game and believe that this will be a nomination for GotY, along with the usual suspects..Go on, get yourself a copy.. but you can't have mine, it's mine, my own, my precious!.. :-)

13.12.2014

This has to be one of the best hack and slash Lord of the Rings games to date. And whats best about this is that you don't have to be a Lord of the Rings fan to play through it (I was one of those huge over - hyped fans however). Content wise the game has a lot to offer, including 20 story missions to progress through which are very engaging, 32 Outcast rescue missions which have you rescuing human slaves from the Uruks and 30 challenge missions (10 for each of your three weapons). This game was developed by Warner Bros Games, who developed the original 2 Batman Arkham games, Shadow of Mordor works in the same way with its heavily focused combat system as the Batman games have done,making you press Y to counter enemy attacks ect. The game is heavily focused on combat, it tries to add variety to its missions by making you use stealth which works in the same way as Assassin's Creed (you can hide in bushes, Parkour and attract enemies over which is basically Assassin's Creed). There are also forge towers scattered around the world maps you need to activate to find the collectibles and side mission locations. There is not just one, but two world maps, which have a lot of variety added to them. The combat, being the main meat of the game has a lot of combo moves and upgrades added to it, allowing for character progression and it makes it easier for the player. Because there is a wide variety in enemies, they need to be dealt with in different ways, for example orcs with shields and spears need to be vaulted over and killed from behind. It would be wise to deal with groups of enemies by using the environment to your advantage, shoot arrows at fly nests, attract Caragore beasts and ride them yourself, cause the orcs and Uruks to turn on each other in combat by branding them and command the Captains and Warchiefs to attack each other. The games Nemesis system is also a beautiful thing indeed, when you die the orc/uruk that killed you gets promoted, if a grunt kills you they become a captain, you then get brought back to life and can go on a Vendetta mission against them making dying much more meaningful. When you encounter these orc and uruk leaders, they say things about their previous encounters with you, like how they want to burn you after you burned them in combat last time or if they run away. This makes hunting these bastards down much more meaningful. Once these leaders have been killed they will drop runes which can be sold for money to buy upgrades or added to your weapons to improve on them. Exploit the weaknesses of these various leaders to get better upgrade rewards after killing them. The game on its own took me 10 hours to beat, but the various side missions, challenges and collectibles summed up to about 36 hours in total within a week of playing the game. Despite its slight repetitiveness the game has good value, was interesting with its story and characters and deserves all the praise that it gets. Even Gollum makes an appearance :) This game easily deserves a 9/10, with only some minor improvements to the story that need to be made, including more memorable characters (going to avoid talking about the story due do some heavy spoiler alerts).

15.11.2014

Shadow of Mordor is a gritty, brutal and unique game and also a unique look at the world of Middle Earth.The game focuses around your character getting revenge for the death of his family and himself and you are able to do this due to the fact that you have been cursed; stuck between life and death. This is where the rather brilliant gaming system comes in.As you progress through the game you earn xp and level ups, like most RPG games of this style, however so do your enemies. Each enemy will remember you and have the scars to show for it. If an enemy is killed by you you gain experience, however if you are killed by an enemy they gain experience and grow in power through the ranks (this canalso be done through fights within the ranks if you don't keep on top of things).This system makes the game quite challenging and realistic; if you couldn't kill the enemy before, he now is even stronger, he knows your weaknesses. However, there is hope, you must gain intel from other orcs on what Captains or Warriors etc have weaknesses and what weaknesses to use to your advantage. A BIG standard advantage is stealth, so don't expect to go running in swords flying (not at first anyway) as you WILL get killed.Using a sword, a bow, your wraith powers (all which level up via runes) and dominion over beasts, you must eliminate any enemy worth eliminating and those in between just for the XP, to get to you final goal.I don't want to give too much of the story away as it is really good and fits perfectly into the feel and atmosphere of Mordor where the game takes place.Where the game takes place is really beautiful, not in a pretty kind of way as it is dreary and baron being Mordor, but in that they have captured the description of the land perfectly and the superior graphics help show it so so well. I often find myself exploring the open world just to see what I can find in it; you can climb any building, kill any beast if you know how and go pretty much anywhere.I also found myself at certain points getting a bit jumpy, with my heart racing as I tried to sneak past Orcs and dreading the noise of their scream as they notice you. This is how I always imagined Mordor, a dead, evil place, with gore and slaves and brutality. A place where you must sneak about to survive and slit throats in the darkness. This game portrays what we all imagined almost exactly.There ARE a couple of cons however. I personally don't like the save system as it took me a while to figure out if it had definitely saved... I found a safe bet was to return to a Tower and keep an eye out for the little spinning circle. Additionally it can get frustrating dying when you think you have killed the Orc you need to and all his underlings come and shove a sword through your neck. KEEP in the dark unless it is completely necessary or that Captain you just killed will be replaced by your killer getting a promotion.Overall: Gorgeous graphics, dark and dangerous atmosphere, perfect representation of Middle Earth's Mordor, with a unique gaming experience. 9/10! Keep at it and enjoy it for everything it has to offer.

4.10.2014

Got the game the day it came out. Played around 50 hours so far and currently on 92% Overall completion.[Main Story]Well written dialogue between all of the characters with very pleasing cut-scenes to enjoy before each mission start and usually at the end of each.The missions themselves were sometimes too similar with repetitive combat to previous ones already completed but I was able to overlook that.There's really not a great deal to say about the main storyline in the game. Not without giving spoilers anyway.Overall it's good, well written and scripted but repetitive at times. - 8/10[Combat]I see a lot of people comparing the combat system in ME:SoM to the Arkham game, yes it's similar.However, I found it was a great deal harder due to the sheer amount of Uruks and other beasties that you'll probably end up fighting at the same time. Well timed counters and attacks can only carry you so far. Become overwhelmed and you're dead. Run into a pack of caragors and miss time your dodges and counters, you're dead. Come face-to face- with a Graug, just run the hell away unless you're later into the game and you have a cool trick up your sleeve.Note: Combat becomes VERY VERY repetitive after a few hours of Uruk slaying and beast hunting so try and mix it up by ranged/stealth combat.The only similarity to the Assassins Creed games is the free running. Without being able to do this the game would be pretty much impossible to complete, sometimes it's better to just run the hell away than fight. Forget about tying it to Assassins Creed because of the stealth killing, MOST OPEN WORLD GAMES HAVE STEALTH KILLING.Overall the combat is well polished and can be challenging. 8/10(Don't die too many times, it'll be easier to start the game again than try killing captains and warchiefs after being killed too many times, they'll all show up together and you wont have a chance)[Nemesis System]This should be sold to other game developers, it's such a brilliant idea. I really didn't play around with it until I'd finished the main story though, I only really did what was required of me to finished the main story in their.The idea of it is really quite genius, no 2 playthroughs will be the same. Any Uruk that kills you will be named and get promoted to Captain who will then mock you the next time you happen to face eachother. In the Nemesis system you can either leave the Uruks to run their own politics by doing the usual Uruk stuff, killing eachother, hunting etc etc, or you can manipulate the system to the way you want it to work, you can decide who you want to be a warchief and help him get there. I wont say too much.Overall the system is really fun to play around with and gives the game something to play again for - 10/10I can't comment on how the game plays with Keyboard/Mouse because I played it with a controller, I can imagine the KYB/M controls to be a little tricky to master and use so would recommend using a controller even without having tried using KYB/M

11.10.2014

While many have compared this to Batman Arkham City and Assassin's Creed there is much more to it than just that. You play as Talion, a former Gondor ranger guarding the Black Gate. His family undergo an ordeal and he ends up being resurrected along with a Wraith. Neither Talion nor the Wraith know what has happened so they journey together in order to piece together the history and lift the curse.While in other games, death often means starting from a checkpoint in this game it is a lot more detailed than that. Everytime an Uruk Captain kills you they become stronger, this means they will have less weaknesses and less vulnerabilities for you to exploit. Furthermore if a lowly Orc kills you,they get promoted to an Uruk captain. You could literally take any enemy in the game and raise them up to be a general. Captains go from level 1 to the powerful level 20. You have 5 Warchiefs who are the commanders of the Uruk army. Taking these down is often difficult as they have a large number of soldiers to command.Speaking of the Uruks, each captain is randomly generated. They have a name and a title. The title is not just for show and often their dialogue will reflect their personalities. You have some that curse at you, others that sing or read poetry. There are even some Uruks that do not talk at all and instead flare their nostrils and scream at you. Besides Uruks there are Ghuls which are like little zombies, Caragors which are similar to Wargs but deadlier and also Graugs (Olog Graugs are giant behemoths that take a long time to kill).This is quite a violent game and it is 18 for a reason. Death and beheading is very common, granted these are evil orcs but even so the violence may put some people off. Having said that the way the game works is mainly up to the player. They can be as brutal or as honourable as they wish. You have your sword, bow and a dagger. As you level up you gain new abilities, defeated captains also drop runes which provide boosts to your abilities. The drain/brand abilities later on the game really change how you play and provide a surprising twist to the gameplay.The story is well told with some exceptionally good looking cutscenes. The game itself looks wonderful and while the specs are higher than other games recently they do reflect the next-gen quality of modern gaming. There are some familiar faces from Lord of the Rings but this game is set between The Hobbit and Frodo's story, so don't expect any Hobbits in this game. This has been one of my favourite games of this decade and while the combat with captains does tend to repeat often I never found it dull and there was always something new to experience. Well worth a try if you like action based games.

13.10.2014

An extremely enjoyable venture into Middle Earth which combines the playstyles of recent Assassin's Creed and Batman releases.My Xbox One has largely been gathering dust since release day, I bought into the hype for COD Ghosts, Titanfall and Watchdogs, each time I came away disappointed. As a result (and having taken part in the beta) I decided to completely forego Destiny and wait for Shadow of Mordor instead.I'm 9.5 hours into this game now and feel it's not too early to share my thoughts for those of you deciding to buy this game. Those 9.5 hours have put me only 15% through the content of the game,to give you an idea of depth.I'm a Lord of the Rings fan but as an avid gamer I'm writing without letting that influence my feelings on this title.This is without doubt my favourite Xbox One release to date, it's brought pure laugh out loud moments as well as oh no moments so far. The development of the characters you come up against is wonderful. This game is incredibly open world, you can choose to pursue any number of story line or side quests depending on how you feel like playing at a given time.Fancy stealthing into an Uruk stronghold and trying to assassinate their Captain? You can. Fancy just strolling in the front door and engaging dozens in sword combat? You can do that too. You can choose to stealth kill or horrifically and savagely tear an Uruk apart in order to intimidate his fellows if you wish.Bite of more than you can chew and the standard Uruk who gets the killing blow in gains esteem and is elevated through the ranks becoming a named character whom you must deal with. It's possible to interrogate his inferiors to find out strengths and weaknesses which in turn brings additional rewards if you kill him.The detail really is fantastic, both graphically and within the characters themselves.If you enjoyed the combat in recent Batman games then this is the same, with the ability to unlock extra skillsets in two different skill trees as you develop your character. Adding additional abilities depending on how you enjoy playing.Something I hope to see added when extra content is brought out, is the challenge score tables that made Batman worth playing once you had completed the main content. I'm generally someone who prefers multiplayer with friends and currently this game is purely single player without even the ability to challenge friends by competing at challenges which Batman did allow, maybe this will be added in future.As such I'd rate this 4.5 Stars but as I must choose, Shadow of Mordor gets a well deserved 5 from me. Very fun and a pleasure to spend time on.

17.3.2015

I had high expectations for this game, and I'm far from disappointed. After 30 hours of gameplay, I just completed the campaign and I'm now attempting all of the side missions. Truth is I let the campaign drag out because I spent so much time having a ball with the nemesis system which in my (and others') opinion is the best thing in the game and is what makes it special. Don't get me wrong though, the campaign is enthralling.Yes there is the open world and the lord of the rings lore but without the nemesis system it's just a regular game. Not only is interrogating orcs to locate and understand weekneses of warchiefs and captains thrilling but orcs have different facial structures and slightly different armor.

4.10.2014

Update 17/12/14:I can now confirm I can play the game! yay... running on a GTX970 like a dream.The game is lots of fun to play, plenty of variety in how you wish to play; be it stealth, hand-to-hand, bow and arrow or chew the shrak to pieces while riding a type of warg. There are plenty of cool tricks that you can do and use as you progress and unlock abilities, which keeps giving variety to the game and helps stop things feeling stagnant/repetitive.There are few aspects to the game:1. The storyline:Not completely linear, sometimes there are two parallel stories to follow, [spoiler] basically your are trying to discover how to remove a curse placed on you that has banished you from death [/spoiler]2.

5.10.2014

Ok so it is a certain batman franchise & a certain band of brotherhood "mish mash"but : Shadows of Mordor presents all the good bits pieced, together and packaged in the Lord of the rings lands and it does it remarkably!ActionSo Arkham City has one of the best fluid combat in gaming series, attacking one enemy to reverse another throw a batarang at an unexpecting enemy all to build and continue your combo whilst knocking out bad guys ... Well picture that but as a type of solider from Gondor instead batarang he has a knife and instead bad guys you have orcs etc.. It is the same fluent fighting that some mastered & approved of so long a go in Arkham.

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