Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor - Of blades and orc blood (User Review)

Platforms: Xbox One, Playstation 4, Windows
Media: Disc and download
Game Modes: Single Player
Season Pass: Yes, released.

Monolith Games presents us this year with yet another exciting AAA release - Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor. It’s an action-adventure sandbox style fantasy game that takes place on the Lord of the Rings universe. Personally, I’ve never read an LOTR book and didn’t really watch its movies as well. Perhaps it’s because of my distaste to the overall ambience (I don’t like middle earth settings) but that’s just me. Yet effectively enough, I’ve been more than curious lately because of this game. I’m not sure if that makes it a good game to have sparked my interest and that’s what I’ll be telling you guys right now.

Disclaimer-ish: This review, along with the rest of my future reviews, is and will be based from my gaming experience. There’s more focus on gameplay than plot, so you don’t have to worry about huge spoilers. If there are parts that are crucial to the gameplay review that contains spoilers, I’ll label them of course. Also, I don’t intend to put as much as effort (and highfalutin words) into these reviews as I only report what I feel, what I see and what I think about the game. If readers like you appreciate user reviews more than critical reviews, then this is for you.

Premise

Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor tells a story about Talion, a ranger  captain of Gondor garrison, whose family, along with him, has been murdered by Sauron’s forces. However, instead of dying, a mystical wraith (whose name I wouldn’t ruin for you), spares him from death and merges with his mortal body, giving him a chance for vengeance and to rid of the dark lord Sauron’s army.

Graphics

The graphics of the game is strikingly well made. Of course, we would expect a lot from AAA releases, especially at how good it looks. New generation consoles and a high-powered PC could enjoy its stunning visuals as this game is released for Xbox One, Playstation 4 and Windows platforms. Since I have not much interest about frame rate, I’d leave that out for now.

The details of the game are also creatively applied. Weather effects bring a lot of life to it such as rainy nights and hot, sunny days. In the game, you are able to advance the time so as to help your approach in taking on missions, but there’s a price to pay (more on that later). Overall, the visuals look absolutely good and it brings you closer into the world of LOTR - no doubt about that.

Gameplay

Okay this is the exciting part. For a AAA release, this game definitely has A LOT of content, which is good! Sure there are available DLCs, but that doesn’t make the game feel incomplete at all. It introduces a rather interesting mechanic: The Nemesis System, which I would discuss further.

Shadow of Mordor’s combat system, along with its shady stealth features, feel kind of… familiar. Let me paint the picture:

• Melee Combat - You are able to strike your enemies with your sword. Each strike will start a combo counter, which progresses with a lot of perks as you chain it higher. The combos offer special moves when it reaches a certain count. They can also be interrupted when you get hit by the enemy or if you’re unable to follow-up a strike with precise timing. As your character levels up, you can purchase upgrades to improve your combat skills. You are also able to counter multiple enemies while attacking, and you can dodge by tumbling over the heads of the minions. Do all of that sound familiar? I’ll give you a hint: Batman Arkham Series.
• Wraith Combat - I say “wraith” combat because it sounds cooler than ranged combat, but it’s basically the same thing. Your wraith fights for you in a really cool way. You can shoot arrows while slowing time and holding the fire button to increase damage, teleport to the enemy, and identify enemies using Wraith vision. Another hint? Eagle vision.
• Stealth - You enter stealth mode when you crouch a bit, often silencing your movements. Upon approaching an enemy, you can either grab and kill him with a swift thrust to the neck, drain him for elf shots or brutally stab him repeatedly to “terrorize” other enemies, leaving you with fewer to fight later on. Besides from approaching enemies quietly, you can kill from above, under a ledge, or within bushes where you automatically enter stealth mode. You can also attract enemies to your location to lure them for an easy kill. Hints? Anyone? Come on this is so obvious. Ezio? Connor? Haystack assassinations?
• Parkour - Yes there is a lot of climbing, running and shimming around. You even get to use a zipline (AC fans will surely know). Strikingly enough, the grunting voice of Talion whenever he climbs structures sounds awfully a lot like Altair’s. If you’ve never played AC, then you should be fine, but somehow it bothers me a little, knowing that it comes that close to another game in comparison. Plus, you get to climb a tower, rebuild it, and activate the map visibility and unlock new missions for that area.

So to summarize, the gameplay elements heavily include those that could be found in Assassin’s Creed series and Batman Arkham series. I’ve got a Gamespot article that speaks about the developers’ points of view, addressing the issue of its vast similarities with the mentioned series, and they even admitted that it DOES borrow animations and code from Assassin’s Creed.  Also, they stated that once you get to play Shadow of Mordor, you’ll feel its “uniqueness” and therefore make the user experience vary greatly from its similar titles. Unfortunately, I didn’t feel that. It really felt a lot like AC and Batman (I’ve played hundreds of hours in those games) and what separates Shadow of Mordor heavily from them is the Wraith abilities and the Nemesis system. Should it bother you? It did for me, but only at the beginning. I’m a forgiving person, and I still enjoyed its gameplay. I would never have played AC and Batman long hours if I didn’t enjoy their styles, and that’s what makes me driven to grind in Shadow of Mordor. So the safe answer would be “it’s up to you”, but my spider sense tells me it really shouldn’t bother you that much. Games DO borrow a lot from others and add in a little of their own (ehem Styx: Master of Shadows). It doesn’t bother me a lot now because I’ve learned to accept that fact and so should you. Besides, it’s LOTR man!

Nemesis System

As I’ve said, Shadow of Mordor has a unique gameplay mechanic called the Nemesis System. What it does is that it displays a group of Uruks and Orcs that you encountered that become bosses, or Captains and Warchiefs, so to speak. Some of these nemeses are blacked out, but you can identify them by interrogating a minion or another captain or by triggering main missions. When grabbing an enemy captain or minion, you have the option to kill him instantly, interrogate him to identify another enemy, or give a death threat to an identified Warchief or Captain, increasing their loot drop rate and power level. What’s interesting enough is that if you get killed by anyone in the game, the ones responsible for your death become promoted. So if you get killed by a measly orc (since you get ridiculously outnumbered a lot in the game), that orc becomes a Captain, and he appears on the Sauron’s Army list. Orcs and Uruks battle each other for domination, so there are mostly power struggles within them which gets one promoted, giving them higher power levels. The higher the power level, the tougher and stronger they get. I once got a Level 10 Captain to get promoted to Level 18 (yes I’m a noob), by getting killed by him 8 freakin times. I managed to throw him in the fire one fight though, and he got burned and retreated. When we met again, he “remembered” me burning him on a previous fight as we began to battle once again. Once you kill someone who killed you, you get revenge points which is rewarding for people like me who get frustrated for being killed by the same dude over and over again. Additionally, when you advance time, some of your targets increase in power levels.

Another interesting thing about the Nemesis System is that it displays the target’s strengths and weaknesses upon interrogation from another enemy. Obviously, you can use this to your advantage and approach the target while exploiting his weakness to make him an easier kill. Some weakness are really good to exploit, such as being vulnerable to stealth kills. One strike and you’re done. However, some of them include invulnerability to stealth and ranged attacks, so you’ll have no choice but to fight them head on. Although bringing in the weakness of that target could make it easier for you. This makes the Nemesis System really interesting as it affects how you approach your target and makes use of strengths and weaknesses to offer you with options on how to take them down the most efficient (and fun) way.

Thoughts and Conclusion

One thing to note about the whole gameplay is that the AI is TERRIBLE at detecting you. You can actually stealth kill someone facing in front of you and the other dude wouldn’t even notice you just murdered his drinking buddy. You can shoot someone from above and nobody will bat an eye even though 20 orcs saw you do it. They’ll just be curious and you can usually run off and hide, wash and repeat. What’s tough though, is you can get outnumbered really quickly, and captains from afar might spot you, joining the hordes of orcs in their kill fest. Of course, if you’re an expert at these types of combat, you wouldn’t mind, but it can get really frustrating especially when you focus on the captain and an enemy spearman gets you. It will get both of them promoted to a higher power level and that means more tough crap for you to handle. Even if you could, it’s not wise to battle them head on unless you’re really good with timing and all.

To conclude my report for you guys, here’s a series of questions most of you might want to get answered:

Will I enjoy it? You get to kill hordes of orcs and uruks with the style you want. You can upgrade your weapons, skills and abilities. The graphics is good, and the battle system is solid. The Nemesis System is also a good tool to aid you in your target approach. I enjoy it because of those things, plus the story. You’ll definitely enjoy it if you’re onto those things too. But if you play mostly FPS, MMO, MOBA and would rather play those games, I don’t think you’ll enjoy this the first try, but give it a shot and it surely wouldn’t disappoint.

What if I’m not an LOTR fan? I haven’t really been a fan of LOTR, but I love this game. Besides, I’m pretty sure that even some LOTR fans wouldn’t want to play this game because they hate too much about life, so if you love games and if you just want to have a good time playing them, I don’t see why you shouldn’t get it. LOTR fan or not.

Is it worth it? It’s one of the best AAA games released up to date. Whether or not you’re an LOTR fan, this game is absolutely worth it because of the vast amount of content  and the quality of the game itself. Plus, if you factor in the DLCs, you can still have a good experience even if you don’t get them. So yes, it is worth it.

Stars? 4.5 out of 5.

Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor

The good:

- Solid gameplay
- Good graphics
- Nemesis system
- Replay value
- Content
- Story

The bad:
- Borrows heavily from some titles. Some might get too disappointed about that
- Can be repetitive sometimes

The ugly:
- Enemy AI detection rate

- ino -