As you take out Captains, other orcs are promoted to take their place, lower ranking Captains stepping closer to the Warchief spot, and some becoming bodyguards for a particular Chief. Each map has its own unique orc hierarchy, from ordinary grunts, to various ranks of Captains, to the top spots of the five Warchiefs. There are two large maps that make up the game, the second reached, appropriately, midway through the main storyline. Let’s explore that Nemesis system further – I only touched on it before. Once I’d specced up to be able to unleash double-big moves with only a five-hit streak, I was a killing machine. My preference was taking out a good number with arrows, then dropping in from stealth, and getting busy with my sword. I never explored the throwing knives, nor the wraith bursts, both of which could be elaborated. Perhaps no more than many of the games from which it borrows, it’s important to add, but still it feels wonderful.Īnd best of all, I worked out my own techniques within a huge array, much of which I didn’t use. And when those groups contain two or three Captains, the super-tough orc leaders, combat becomes like a wonderful dance. Where once your only option was to run away, now you can cope, executing hit-streaks that unlock spectacular finishing moves, and then figuring how to string these together to become a whirling master of death, despite twenty or thirty orcs trying to attack you at once. Instead of the game just throwing far harder enemies at you to make you feel constantly under-classed (one of my number one gaming frustrations), here it allows you to be more capable when faced with larger groups. The greater your arsenal of tricks and moves, the more intricate and complex fighting becomes. It does something so damned rare: it becomes more interesting. Unlocking more abilities doesn’t make the combat simpler, nor indeed does the game make itself more difficult. This, like everything else, improves as you go along. It’s this last part I want to celebrate most, but before I get there, I want to talk a bit more about the combat. And ride on the backs of giant beasts, blow up campfires, and meddle in the grunted violent world of orc politics. But at the same time, you rush around chopping the heads off thousands of orcs in spectacular slow-motion special moves. A straight-faced storyline draws quite a bold bridge between the events of The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings, dark tales of the rise of Sauron, further consequences of the creation of those pesky rings, and vengeance for slaughtered families. Shadow Of Mordor finds that same midpoint between the noble sincerity of a traditional RPG, and the bubblegum frivolity of a third-person action game. To me, it feels like the unofficial follow-up to the woefully under-rated and doom-ridden Kingdoms Of Amalur: Reckoning. But it’s to neither game I find myself comparing it upon completion. The game owes them vast amounts, cribbing giant chunks of each. If you want some more convincing, read on.Ī lot have compared Shadow Of Mordor to Batman: Arkham City, or the Assassin’s Creed series. If you want such things to be surprises, take the advice of my previous coverage and get hold of this action-brawler. And in order to say why, I’m going to talk about systems and unlocks that aren’t revealed until halfway through the game. After that, it does something few games ever do: it gets continually better the further into it you get. The game makes all its big mistakes (and they’re very big mistakes) in the first hour. When I wrote my Wot I Think So Far of the game last week, I already knew it was great. Now I've played for a large proportion of the last five days, with the main storyline completed, and a worrying number of the collectibles and side quests ticked off, I feel far more prepared to give a more definitive statement on Middle-Earth: Shadow Of Mordor: I love it.
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