So a week back I was strolling through the most magical place in America, Walmart. As me good ol mum went to get milk, meat, and various microwavable pasta dishes, I stopped by what I figured to be a limited gaming section. It was there, for a steal of $25, I found a DVD for Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor. I guess since the sequel, Shadow of War is coming out soon I could get this kind of deal now. I heard lots of good things about this game, particularly about some unique mechanics of some kind including the patented nemesis system© whatever that meant. And ya, one week later, I am here to preach to the masses of what kind of experience you can expect to find here. Shadow of Mordor, in brief, to make a thesis statement as my English course requires of me every assignment, is a great addition to any game collection as well as the J.R.R. Tolkien universe, with gameplay that feels familiar at first but adds in all kinds of new flavors of formula to the mix which are easy to adapt with, and a compelling adventure to hold the tide against the return of Sauron.

So what better way to kick this off with the ever present question of “why am I here?” The game begins with Talion, a deceased ranger who was tasked with patrolling the Black Gate of Mordor if the day came when Sauron would awaken. To clarify for those LotR fans out there, or at least those who are aware of the chronology of the films, this game takes place somewhere between The Hobbit trilogy and the Lord of the Rings trilogy, before Mordor is reduced to the wasteland we see in the films. As a phantom, gazing at the dead bodies of his mature son and wife, he recalls the last moments he had with them before the Black Hand and Uruk-hai invaded from Mount Doom. (in tutorial form! ) He is then approached by another phantom, an old elf man who, from this point onward, I will refer to as the elven wraith. He explains that Talion can’t die, not yet anyways, they are bound together in a realm between life and death due to the curse of the Black Hand. The elven wraith himself can’t recall his old identity from centuries ago, but recalls that he and his family were murdered, much like Talion, and claims this relationship has bound them. So to break the curse, the elven wraith grants Talion his strength and allows him to reincarnate in order to have his vengeance, all while trying to remember his past life, restore his power, and defeat Sauron’s army.

Here are some things to note about the gameplay, cause playing the game is important. If anyone were to ask me if this game felt like any other game, I’d tell them “it plays a lot like Assassins Creed”. I did play a demo of Black Flag for a few days, so I could relate the two. The way you move around feels very similar, particularly in the importance of stealth and parkour. Combat is also very similar, as you can perform a variety of similar sneak attacks, and when NOT being a cheap and very effective ninja, the way you counter enemies, dodge attacks, use a ranged bow, the fact you are always outnumbered like 20 to one, very creedy indeed. However, if you asked me, I’d say this is basically Assassins Creed if Assassins Creed didn’t kick your bum bum for failing at stealth and the actual fighting was more variable and fulfilling. In general, you aren’t playing just Talion, you’re also playing as the elven wraith. Even your character model seems to transfer between the two as you perform different actions like jumping long distances, hiding in bushes, using the bow, and draining enemies.

Each of the three weapons you have for these different purposes, the sword, your son’s broken sword that you use as a dagger, and the bow have different kinds of uses and upgrades. You can gain rune slots for these weapons to add runes from completed missions and fallen enemies that upgrade the properties of each, and you can unlock extra abilities through gaining experience and completing other specific missions. An important aspect of combat you’ll be relying on will be the combo counter. If you keep on attacking without taking a break or taking damage, you can use various attacks, such as fatality attacks that instantly kill lesser enemies, various wraith attacks for crowd control, and other effects. This basically adds a short learning curve of focusing on countering or avoiding attacks from enemies surrounding you and restraining from performing actions that will leave you more vulnerable, basically going with the flow of the battle. The bow is also potent due to the focus meter you have. When aiming the bow, time slows down severely, allowing you to easily pick off enemies of your choice before engagement or when surrounded. They also become useful for hitting various traps, like knocking down “bee” hives, caragor bait, or striking fires and explosive grog barrels to damage nearby enemies. Your ammunition is replenished by using the wraith drain abilities you have. One can be used at any time against a single target, but is easily interrupted by any attack. You also have the choice to use the up-close stealth drain you will unlock instead of outright killing the enemy to get arrows back. Either way ends with the enemy running in fear, so it’s certainly useful.

Some other mechanics that will come to your aid are herbs that are strewn about to restore your health and your last chances. Whenever you lose all your health, you aren’t done yet, you still get an opportunity to retaliate at the last moment via a quicktime event. Basically it lets you go Boromir style, getting two chances to get back in to the fight, but three strikes, and you’re out. Referring back to QTE’s, they’re pretty common throughout the game, but aren’t all that annoying once you get the hang of them. You can generally anticipate when a QTE will occur and how to react, be it getting a cursor in a circle and pressing one of four buttons in time or mashing a button repeatedly. It’s not like you’ll be watching a cutscene and then you’ll be thrusted back into the game while you were taking a drink… well, except for one occasion, but I’ll let you find out on your own. -w-

All that is a matter of controlling your character, but now I can start having fun getting into the real meat of the game, the almighty NEMESIS SYSTEM. Any source giving information on how Shadow of Mordor works will highlight the innovative nemesis system they developed. At first it doesn’t seem TOO in depth, I mean yeah, they programmed enemies to use different voice clips if they saw you die and you encounter them after resurrecting, that isn’t much to write about, just a nice little immersive detail, right? Well you soon get a taste on how deep this rabbit hole goes. For one, every generated orc enemy is unique, each and every one. Their appearance, personality, voice, motives, battle style, and mannerisms are randomized, but most of the orcs won’t get a chance to show it. That orc over there for instance. His name is Grubok, he has always had a thing for herbs in the wild. He’s been experimenting with them, trying to make either a deadly toxin for his fellow troops or an amazing grog ingredient. He knows a part of the map like his eyelids, and can tell what kind of changes have occurred each day. While Grubok hasn’t found a chance to make an example of himself yet for his superiors, if he ever became a captain, he’d want to slaughter Nokul Ghuul-Slasher, who’s been a stupid shrahk to all his fellow squad members. If a day like that would come, he’d host a celebratory feast, and all his loyal friends would drink and sing to the glory of the dark lord… but none of that will ever happen because you just caved his head against a rock.

The army of an area will constantly change overtime, especially if you choose to advance the time at a checkpoint or die. Various uruk will be promoted, grow in power, slaughter one another for positions, and initiate new goals. Once you make a name for yourself as the “gravewalker” who seems to escape death itself an mercilessly hunts the uruk, everyone will realize that taking you down is basically bragging rights. If a normal enemy defeats you, they will become a captain, and captains will grow in power if they defeat you or survive any encounters with you. Captains are what bring life into the battlefield, aside from each being unique in their own respect, they’re also stronger than regular enemies by a long shot. They have different sets of weaknesses and strengths, you can find them out through trial and error, or by gaining intel from a “worm” or enemy plans. While some captains will have a great fear of caragors, the sight of them might send others into a furious rage. Some are immune or weak to ranged or stealth attacks, will be able to counter you, have various attributes forcing you to fight them in a more inventive way, they could have varying attacks, regain health if not eliminated quick, might not give you a last chance when you lose health, show up to challenge you unexpectedly, or even refuse to kill you off themselves. Oh my.

However, the one attribute that separates this experience from game to custom-tailored story, the thing that got the nemesis system its name, uruk are surprisingly more adaptive than you might think. As mentioned before, they will act to various occurrences that happen between you and them. They will become more familiar with you as you encounter them multiple times. If they escaped the battle, they will reference it. If you escaped the battle, they will reference it. If you are killed in a confrontation with them and other uruk leaders, they reference it. The things you used to your advantage, stealth, range, fire, beasts, allies, they can remember all of that. It gets better, or worse depending on how’d you view the dilemma of having an enemy. If you think that killing a captain will end the whole cycle, you will be surprised to see that, while fighting a new threat, a familiar battle cry and figure will arrive. One does not simply kill an uruk, even the game mentions at some point that the only sure-fire way to kill one is removing the head. Any captain that you slay without decapitation has the chance to come back, and this chance gets more likely the more they ruin your life. For instance, early in my endeavors, I found a reoccurring nemesis in Nakra the Drowned. The pasty looking prune face got in my way more times than I can count back when I was still learning how to play, so he got plenty of kills against me. Once I finally got to take him out, he came back the next time-skip with a couple more scars ready to have another go at me, and yeh, I’m sure the first time I beat him was a lucky fluke since he started beating me down and beating me down and never letting up. He made it all the way to power level 20 before any other captain, and pretty early into the game when the next biggest threat was a level 12 warchief. I must’ve killed him 5 times until he stopped cropping up, and sadly, he wouldn’t even be my worst enemy in the story mode.

Now there is one more important thing to note, a feature that becomes available and opens the way for a whole new playstyle, branding. In terms of lore, when Sauron created the orcs, he made it so that they operated from fear. By making sure the orcs are constantly aware of his power and influence, they will always stay loyal to him. However, if they were to find a more fearsome force, they would change allegiance to whoever utilized it. The elven wraith eventually upgrades the drain into brand, manipulating the minds of orcs so that they will fight for YOU. This makes combat all the more interesting, as you can create entire squadrons of allied orcs hiding in plain sight amongst other orcs. Before starting a fight, you can stealthily brand all the guards and archers so they can start fighting once they see you under threat. In combat, you can rack up a combo and use automatic combat brands to befriend orcs as your allies fall, leading to an endless cycle of traitorous orcs on your side. Remember the paint and thinner in Epic Mickey? How they gave you the option to befriend SOME enemies instead of outright killing them, and they would do little damage compared to you, become aggressive again if they took enough damage, and they would be left behind as you progress the level or you would have to kill them anyways? Monolith looked at Epic Mickey, went to the studio of the devs, insulted their moms, and then went back to make this. Branded enemies last indefinitely, and don’t despawn. If you make a habit of branding enemies in varying areas, you can ensure that wherever you may go there will be an orc insider you can command to fight at anytime.

However, these orcs don’t really match up to their captains, so how about letting the player brand the more significant fighters as well? I swear to god Monolith… what other games have these people made? Oh… Gotham City Imposters… u wot? Anyways, you can have much greater control against these armies when a captain is branded, and it’s a really simple concept. The captains will still do captain things on their own, like trials and activities to gain power and respect as well as challenging other uruks, but you have a much bigger hand in this. You can oversee the missions they complete to ensure victory for them, and you can command them to fight other orcs for you. You can even train a weaker captain that would be easier to brand by challenging him against other orcs, then get him promoted as a bodyguard of a warchief, at which point they can betray him and take his place. You can go from a one-man rebellion, to a full on warring faction against the Black Hand, it’s pretty great.

You know what else branding lets you do? There are beasts in Mordor called caragors and graugs, caragors are giant wolf-like pack animals that tear apart anything they can knock down, and graugs are basically like trolls if they were bigger and more savage. You eventually gain the ability to ride both. Caragors allow for fast movement across the maps, so they’re great for making escapes, and there are some captains who get absolutely MAIMED by these things. If you think taking out a captain with stealth was cheap, how about knocking them down before they even know there was a caragor charging at them with mach speed and tearing their throat out in a good second and a half? Graugs on the other hand are basically destructive tanks, and take a bit more coordination. The best way to work with one is by summoning a storm of beasts for you. Step 1: sneak up and slice the ankle to do severe damage and attract caragors to attack it. Step 2: systematically gain control of as many caragors as you can. Step 3: shoot the graug in the head twice to stun it. Step 4: start QTEing the frig out of him until you can ride him. Now you’re riding a graug, AND you have a couple caragors tearing at orcs.

Now there are a couple loose ends I’d like to discuss, maybe some gripes I do happen to have. At some point I unlocked another map, a map with a separate army than the other. This allowed me to start messing in one area, and by the time I went back to the old area the army was more fleshed out again. That’s nice and all, but I actually thought there would be more maps to unlock. There are only two, and while I can say they are both well designed and are full of things to do, I generally memorized the layout of both very quickly. Also, you will find several strongholds in the areas, they have more orcs than any other place and come with an alert system. This means you really need to advocate stealth when crossing through, or everyone in the base will be coming for you. There’s always the painful situation when I want to hunt down a specific captain, I can’t stealth attack him, and as I start fighting him the alarm is set off and 3 more captains come my way and obliterate me. Also, the mid-fight cutscenes. Captains like announcing their presence when they arrive, and the battle will be interrupted while they taunt you. I’ve had some situations when this got out of hand, as multiple captains arrive in sequence so I don’t get much time between each cutscene, or moments when a cutscene ended and I get hit by something I couldn’t get enough time to react to. Also, when trying to move around walls, I've noticed I just can't move sometimes, not me being stuck in the wall itself, but the general obstruction detection just keeps me from moving unless I walk in the opposite direction from the wall. Fortunately I only trigger this when I'm undetected anyways.

Overall, Shadow of Mordor is a great game, I love playing it, and I’d recommend it to anyone who likes fluent combat or an immersive game world. It’s pretty neat how even though you play as TWO characters with their own motives and backstory, you often forget you’re even playing as someone else because everything feels so personal. As painful as it is for me to keep myself from gushing at how amazing a story is, just take my word for it, the story gets really good, anyone familiar with the films will enjoy watching events play out. It sure is a good thing I got Shadow of Mordor now as well, because now I don’t even have to wait as long as other people for Shadow of War, and THAT’S something I’m looking forward to.

Good review! This was a very lengthy and fleshed out review, covering a broad array of things from this game. I kind of wanna try this game out now, to see how good it is for myself.

I myself have played this game and agree that in some ways it is similar to Assassin's Creed and others. Good review. Liked.

This may well be the first time I've sat through a 3,000+ word review and enjoyed it. Well written, even if it doesn't follow the usual formula here.

I have the game (GoTY edition) and I agree entirely with you on how fun and, in ways, deep it is. I need to get around to finishing it as soon as I get the free time to really game again. Alas, life likes to get in the way, doesn't it?

Yep, that darn life thingy. Thanks for the support, means a lot. Also a quick update... I lied about Nakra the Drowned. At first I would've said 7 or 8 times I'd killed him, but thought that I was just exaggerating the situation I was in when I started the game. Then I was looking through my runes for the first time... and noticed I got like 12 of them from the guy... and there may be more runes I never picked up from him. HOW WAS HE NOT MY MAIN NEMESIS!?