Shadows of Mordor... Review, I guess?

With a pretty horrifying number of orcs burned, exploded, decaptitated, or stabbed, my playthrough of Shadows of Mordor has reached its conclusion.

I enjoyed the game, overall, and would recommend it, especially now that it's gone down in price - though I'd recommend playing it on a gaming PC or next-gen console, as the old 360 sometimes had a bit of huffing and puffing to do (textures especially would sometimes go super-low resolution until the game could catch its breath.)

One of the things that's a little odd about the game is that it feels fairly short. Now, that could very well be a result of my having been playing Skyrim just before starting in on Mordor. Shadows of Mordor is sort of an open-world game, but almost more in an old-fashioned, Metroid kind of way. I think the main reason for this is that there really isn't any "safe" area. You're in Mordor the entire game, and while there are certainly places to run around with relative freedom, the whole game map is basically swarming with Orcs.

This is a bit of a double-edged sword. On one hand, you've always got Uruks somewhere nearby that you can mess with. But it also kind of flattens the game world. You will encounter new, tougher classes of grunt orcs as you go, but once you figure out the combat system (or level up enough to have a nice complement of stat boosts, abilities, and weapon runes) you're basically not going to have to worry about any big surprises in your travels.

The nemesis system, with named enemy Captains and Warchiefs, is pretty cool, but it feels like it could be more central and dynamic within the game.

One problem is that there's basically only three ranks - Grunt, Captain, and Warchief. You'll see Captains getting promoted from one of the three tiers in the Captains' ranks to the next constantly, but if there's any value to that promotion, I don't really know what it is. Warchiefs will only come out when certain conditions are met, and it doesn't seem like you ever see Orcs who aren't under your influence back-stabbing their Warchiefs. I think the promise of the nemesis system is that the politics of the Orcs give you a constant need to readjust your strategy, but in practice, with a bit of intel, you can just zero in on the Orcs you need to take down.

That said, intel is actually fairly rare. While you can, with diligence, get the skinny on every captain and warchief out there, chances are you're going to be running into Captains you've never heard of, and you'll have to rely on your standard combat to beat them - but the thing is, once you get the hang of said combat, most of these guys won't feel like much of a threat, even if they do have certain immunities.

Another problem with the system that could be dealt with in a sequel or something, is that the orc officers actually get less interesting and unique as their power levels increase. When you're dealing with officers in the lower levels, you'll find that some can be killed instantly with stealth attacks, or ranged attacks. Now, yes, instant kills would make them a little dull, but when you start to deal with high-level opponents, you often find ones that are totally immune to ranged attacks, stealth attacks, and beast attacks. And what that means is that you've just got to go fight them the old fashioned way.

Occasionally, an orc you've "killed" will come back to life, and awesomely, they'll usually have some scar or metal prosthetic to indicate how you defeated them the first time. The thing is, this doesn't happen very often. Usually, if they do come back, you'll have - for example - already killed their Warchief, making them just a nuisance. I'd have liked for there to be a bit more of a real rivalry built up between Talion and these orcs.

Orcs will permanently die if you behead them, but this is kind of determined randomly as far as I can tell - sometimes your "Execute" attack will take their heads off, and sometimes you'll just super-stab them.

Still, it's a really cool feature that I think could use some refinement.

The game world has some great positives and some great negatives. On the positive side, the game does a good job recapturing the dirty aesthetic of the LOTR movies. This definitely feels like the version of Tolkien brought to us by Peter Jackson. The voice acting is also quite good. Storywise, it's... tantalyzing. There's tons of backstory (the Elf-Wraith who is bonded to Talion is a pretty important figure in Middle-Earth's history,) but the characters we deal with are a little thin. There is a human refugee kingdom that has for some reason decided Mordor would be a good place to live (in fairness, they were there before the Orcs came back,) but their story doesn't really go that far beyond "we need to get the hell out of Mordor."

There's also something weirdly unsatisfying about the fact that there are two large game areas, rather than three. As I played through the Udun section of the game, I actually began to suspect I might spend the entire time there. But upon entering the Sea of Nurnen area, the game seemed like it was going to open up into a much larger expanse. However, in the end, other than a couple of areas you only go to when dealing with the major bosses, that's it. Now, each of these areas has districts that vary somewhat. You'll get to know the various towns and fortresses with larger populations of orcs and contrast those with the open spaces.

The major "boss fights" are also not really that. The Hammer is the only one that you fight in open combat, and he's definitely a challenge (especially with a constant stream of Orc grunts joining him.) The Tower, however, is an attempt at a "Stealth Boss." Obviously, SoM is a game that allows you to do things stealthily, and thus it would be weird for every major enemy to be fought in open combat. The problem is that adjusting difficulty in stealth gameplay is always tricky, as it tends to operate on a scale of "do I see you or not?" (Actually, there's an idea for game developers - is there a way to make a type of stealth gameplay with more variation.) The final boss, rather than involving the Bow, as you might guess, is actually just an old-school "Quick Time Event," where you have to press the buttons that pop up on the screen.

Before summing up, let's talk combat. Stealth really works just like in a game like Assassin's Creed, though you have other options than just killing an enemy if you can nab them. The psychology of the orcs plays a role here - in the second half of the game you can "brand" orcs so that they'll fight for you (and obey your commands without resisting.) You can also "brutalize" enemies from stealth, which is actually a pretty clever alternative to the old "pick them off one at a time" style of stealth from similar games. Brutalizing will have you stab the target multiple times. This is useful when attacking a group of orcs, as it will cause at least one of them to run away screaming, and it will also charge up your hit-streak before you engage the remaining orcs.

Melee combat is pretty fun when you get the hang of it. Each time you strike an enemy (with any weapon,) your hit counter will go up by one, and will continue to climb as long as you don't miss, get hit by an attack, or go for a long enough time without hitting anything. When you get up to eight, the counter will turn red, allowing you to use a powerful finisher (such as Execute, which instant-kills grunts and does significant damage to captains and warchiefs.) There are plenty of abilities you can unlock as you go that will make it easier to rack up this counter and pull off more of those moves. Oddly, though this might be just me, and potentially a result of the default control scheme, but parrying can be tough to pull off. When an enemy tries to strike you, you'll have a brief moment to respond, and it can be difficult to pull this off when trying to keep on the offensive. There aren't really any "counter-kills" like in Assassin's Creed, and enemies will often attack at the same time, so you'll need to be quick to respond - though thankfully, if you strike a guy while they're winding up for an attack, you will interrupt them (except the shield-carrying guardians, I believe.)

Ranged combat has cleverly been designed so that you can fight like Legolas pretty effectively. Unlike the sword and dagger (the latter actually being the remains of a broken sword,) the Bow is an ethereal extension of the Elf Wraith. This means you'll go into Wraith mode automatically when firing the bow. Additionally, by default you'll also start using Focus (a regenerating resource) to slow down time while firing. This allows you to get off multiple charged headshots before the orcs you're fighting can react, or allowing you to shoot an orc in the head right in the middle of a grand melee. Arrows, or "Elf-Shot" can be recovered either by finding the ghostly projectiles in the walls and floors of the many ruins in the area, or by "draining" poor orcs who get in your way (this attack cleverly employs a dutch angle for the camera to sell how unsettling it is.)

There is a story through which to progress here, and there's a structure to the game's quests, but I think the main selling point is that it's truly fun to get in there and mess it up with some Uruks. Some gameplay features could definitely have been more emphasized, particularly the nemesis system (I'm still not entirely sure how useful it is to "terrify" my targets,) and while the two main game areas did feel relatively different, I think they could have done more to vary the environment. But any of the problems I might have had with the game could be fixed in a sequel, and given that it ends with an utterly shameless sequel hook, I expect we'll see one before too long.

Dominating Orcs for Fun and Profit

Right now I've been playing a bunch of Shadows of Mordor, which is proving quite fun. Having finished the "Udûn" section, I've moved on to the Núrn area - a region on the coast of an inland sea that is far more green than the previous one. For context, Udûn is, I believe, the area directly inside the Black Gate - which is the heavily fortified entrance to Mordor in the northwest. Núrn is farther south, and is used as farmlands to feed Sauron's army (even Orcs gotta eat, and they can't live on pure cannibalism, what with the conservation of energy.)

While your efforts in Udûn had you killing all of the Orc Warchiefs there, here you'll unlock the ability to "brand" them. You can brand any orc you defeat - regular grunts can be branded easily, whereas Captains and Warchiefs will require you to weaken them or terrify them. In addition to the old interrogation abilities that you used in the first part of the game, you'll also be able to send them on missions. Captains can be sent to get in as bodyguards to Warchiefs, and once they've proven themselves (something you can ensure by doing a quick mission,) or if the Captain you capture is already a bodyguard, you can send your agent to assassinate his Warchief. If he succeeds (and again, you'll need to help,) you'll have a loyal Warchief.

You can also send said Warchiefs to make trouble for others of their rank, which starts a "Riot," where both of their forces clash.

I had a particularly nasty Warchief I wanted to replace (though you can also just brand a defeated Warchief instead of cutting off his head,) and after sending a Death Threat against him (which increases his strength but also the reward for killing him) he was at what I believe is the maximum power level, which is 20. Worried that my coup would be difficult, I did a LOT of groundwork. I killed one of his bodyguards and branded the other, sending my agent to assassinate him. But I also had a previously-branded Warchief (who had a bodyguard Captain I'd also branded) start a riot against this guy.

So when I finally showed up to take him on, the tough bastard was surrounded by troops friendly to me. The biggest challenge in the fight was just not killing my own loyal Orcs while we all swarmed this poor sod. And despite being a very powerful enemy, we took him down (though not with a satisfying decapitation. Normally that would mean that he could come back after some time, but given that my branded Captain had betrayed him, he then took his position.

So with that, I have 3/5 of the Warchiefs in Núrn under my control (one of them I got just by branding him in combat.)

Taking control of the Orcish hordes in Mordor is fairly satisfying, as you feel like a combination of assassin and Machiavellian chessmaster. On the other hand, I feel like there will be some kind of reckoning here. Power is a volatile thing, especially in Middle Earth. And Sauron often preys on people who seek to take his power for themselves. It's not as if the Orcs I have under control are suddenly becoming model citizens.

But for now, having a few allies at my side, however odious they may be, has its advantages.

First Hour or So of Shadows of Mordor

I recently got enough storage space for Shadows of Mordor on the XBox 360 (and yes, I know this is more of a next-gen game, but let me know when an XBox One or PS4 is like $150 and we'll talk.) I've barely scratched the surface, only really doing a single side mission to get a new Dagger Legend. I've managed to die twice, though, and that's teaching me something about the game.

From the looks of the game, my closest analog that I'm familiar with is Assassin's Creed (though I'm given to understand it's more similar to the Batman Arkham games.) However, at least so far, the game is much more punishing when it comes to combat.

Fighting Uruks will give you various forms of XP - just killing them will earn you ability points, which can be spent to gain new abilities, but then you'll need to kill Captains and Warchiefs to gain power, which unlocks further tiers of those abilities. There are also weapon Legends which will have various effects on the weapons you use, and some other forms of leveling that increase base stats like health, arrows, and other such things.

You certainly can fight large crowds, and I'm sure that as I get used to the controls and the subtleties of the game I'll be able to do better in these fights, but there's much less of the "Mook Chivalry" you see in AC games.

Out of the gate, I really, really recommend stealth. The Orcs don't seem to be terribly vigilant, but if they do notice you, you're going to have trouble. You're also more likely than I expected to run into Captains, who are pretty serious threats if they've got anyone helping them (and probably on their own as well.)

The game is built around you dying though - the whole premise is actually that you were killed in the prologue, but cursed in such a way that prevented you from actually dying (and bonding you to the spirit of an Elf wraith... and that's pretty much all I have so far.) So your deaths aren't just retconned away like they are in just about every video game. Instead, an Orc - sorry, Uruk (which I thought was just an Elvish word for Orc) - that kills you will gain prestige. A random grunt will be promoted to Captain and will then engage in a power struggle (this might not happen if there are slots in the ranks made "available," but I don't know,) and kill off one of the other captains. The funny thing about this is that you can kind of do "Death Intel" by dying and then knowing that the guy who killed you has risen in rank. Uruks that kill you will gain power, but you also gain a bit of power when you die, so I don't think you can paint yourself into a power corner if you die too often.

I only had sporadic time to play today, so I was only able to accomplish a little. I'm sure I'll have more to share as I explore the game more.