Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor is one of the best games of its generation, thanks to its compelling main character(s), a great combat system, fantastic open world, and an intriguingly advanced enemy system which makes death really mean something.
As well as being a brilliant and beautiful game of exploration and more importantly tearing apart orcs, Shadow of Mordor is essentially the answer to ‘What if Assassin’s Creed and the Arkham games had a kid that was really into Lord of the Rings?’. As an open-world Lord of the Rings game, it succeeds where many others have failed, but perhaps its most obvious triumph is how it manages to fit into the established world of Lord of the Rings, whilst still telling a fresh new story.
Starting as a classic revenge tale, with just enough Tolkien lore to add something new, Shadow of Mordor’s plot revolves around a Ranger of Gondor named Talion, who along with his family is murdered during the prologue.
Almost straight away, however, his spirit is bonded with that of Celebrimbor an ancient elf with some serious memory loss (and a particular bone to pick with Sauron and his army). After the two are bound Talion is unable to die, and further driven by his revenge to take down the Tower, Hammer, and Black Hand of Sauron (the Orc captains who killed his family).
The storyline sees Talion and Celebrimbor meet Gollum, along with a range of other characters such as Ratbag – a cowardly, but ambitious Orc, Hirgon – a former Ranger who now leads a small group of people wanting to live in Mordor (for some reason), and Queen Marwen and her daughter Lithariel – who live in the sunny and green south of Mordor. Talion also allies himself with the dwarf Torvin who teaches Talion how to hunt, and tame, the various beasts of Mordor.
Although it’s nothing ground-breaking in terms of original storytelling, the Shadow of Mordor plot, in general, is a great addition to the Middle Earth franchise (it being more in line with the movies than the books) and manages to tell a truly entertaining standalone story without needing to get too involved in the main Lord of the Rings story (a place where a number of spin-offs and prequels often fall short).
Anything that Shadows of Mordor lacks in terms of originality, it more than makes up for in its execution. Mimicking the Batman Arkham games’ combat and stealth mode, whilst adding weapons, supernatural powers, and more gory takedowns could have been easy to mess up. But the system feels as good as ever, and right at home within Mordor. The systems are slightly more forgiving than the classic Arkham model, for example, Mordor allows the player to counter at almost any point unlike Arkham which locks you into animations, and of course, the addition of various powers and weapons makes taking down endless waves of orcs extremely entertaining.
But possibly the most interesting feature of Shadows of Mordor is the ‘nemesis system’, which essentially creates an endless hierarchy of randomly generated (unique) Uruk’s for Talion to interact with. The concept of ‘Sauron’s army’ is an ever-evolving chain of command, with constant power struggles, and once Talion takes down one of the higher-ups, the lesser-ranked Uruks battle in an attempt to fill the power vacuum.
What really makes this system so impressive is that each of these Uruks are unique, and randomly generated with vastly differing physical appearances, armours, strengths, weakness and names.
Secondly, and perhaps most crucially, not only are each of them unique but so are their interactions with Talion himself – basically, the Orcs remember.
When you come across an Orc that has previously killed you (or one you previously battled) a small cut scene launches in which they often reference that event, going into specific details. So, for example, when you set fire to an Orc and encounter him later he will be covered in burns and may now be scared of fire (which you can use to your advantage).
Ultimately, the addition of unique enemies and interactions adds significant depth to an already clever system, resulting in an enemy hierarchy which is arguably more fun to explore than the main campaign.
Although not the most advanced levelling system for a playable character, the level progression is essential, often in the early stages it is easy to become overwhelmed by the many Uruks within Mordor, but soon enough, once Talion/Celebrimbor have upgraded a few of their abilities (and learned new ones), you’ll be tearing through the monsters of Middle Earth quicker than Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli put together.
All in all Shadow of Mordor’s use of an existing franchise, combined with its originality and fascinating Nemesis system make it one of the Games of the PlayStation 4/Xbox One generation, one that promised AAA games with intricate and clever systems underpinning them, something that I’d argue unfortunately the generation never quite delivered on.
What could have easily been a ‘diet Arkham meets Assassins Creed with a Lord of the Rings skin’, instead Shadow of Mordor manages to be a unique game adding up to a truly memorable experience, and one of the best of its generation years after its release. For more posts check out the rest of the site, and check out my videos on YouTube.
