Middle Earth- Shadow of War
Middle Earth- Shadow of War is an open-world adventure action game that was directly inspired by the best-selling book series The Lord of The Rings by J.R.R Tolkien. Shadow of War is a sequel to Shadow of Mordor in which we follow the story of Talion, who is a ranger of Gondor, who, following the death of his family, is merged with a wraith Elf named Celebrimbor. From there, both Talion and Celebrimbor share the same body, and they work together to avenge Talion’s family while attempting to uncover the lost memories of Celebrimbor’s past. This game continues on the story after Talion has killed those responsible for his family’s death, in which Talion and Celebrimbor attempt to build an army to challenge Sauron himself (the main antagonist of the Lord of The Rings Series). From there, you go through the trials and tribulations of building an army powerful enough for your cause, as well as the difficulty in both Talion and Celebrimbor working together due to differing ideologies and goals.
Disclaimers
I will be reviewing the PC version of this game.
This review is done after the micro-transaction system was removed
Reasons for choosing this project
The reason I choose to do a game review was so I could develop my analytical and content creation skills. By doing a game review, I was able to do a type of analysis that I had never done before as well as learn new methods of analysis, one being that of playtesting in which I had to test the game in order to determine its faults and attributes. I would basically push the limits of the game in order to test for flaws, glitches or oversights by the developers in order to determine how well the game was put together.
My content creation skills were developed through the process of creating this review as I had never done a review of this type, so I naturally had to think differently when I was reviewing academic articles or films. The process of then structuring the review was an important task of content creation as I had to figure out the best layout to showcase an easy to understand review of the game.
Gameplay
The game displays a very fluid and responsive movement system that works well in conjunction with an adaptive camera system that makes movement seamless. The climbing system has been upgraded from the previous game, allowing you to move up buildings much faster as well as an additional change to ground movement, in which you are given the ability for short bursts of “super speed”.
Although the climbing system has been upgraded, it is flawed in the fact that there are sometimes too many interactive elements all packed very close together. With no separate button to choose which component to interact with, you sometimes just have to press on and try your luck, hoping for the best that it picks the one that you are attempting to interact with.
The combat system has been made more intrinsic and challenging as there are now much more enemy types which result in the player having to change their fighting tactics on the fly. The mixture of different enemy types was done very well with fast and slow-moving enemy types for both the ranged as well as close-quarters fighters. This gives the combat a fun but also challenging element.
Graphics
Shadow of War displays an absolutely stunning 4k resolution that gives the game the feeling of being an oil painting in motion. This is further complemented by the excellent colour grading that brings forth all the little details in the world of middle earth. The game is also still able to run smoothly on all the highest graphics settings without the need for a very high-end gaming pc.
Shadow of war also offers one of the most in-depth and user-friendly graphical options menus. You are able to change nearly every aspect of how the game looks all the way, from in-game shadows to the visual density of objects. This gives the player the ability to have the game look anyway they see fit as well as what graphical elements they would like to put the most power into in order to ensure a smooth gaming experience.
Overall, the graphics are a joy to look at and play about with, and they offer a cinematic experience while also integrating many of the aspects of visual style from the lord of the rings. This really helps to showcase the look of the game as a Lord of The Rings game with its homage to the unique Lord of The Rings aesthetic.
Storyline
The Storyline follows on from the previous game and up’s the scale as well as the tension of the last title. Instead of just two world hubs, there are now five that are packed to the brim with missions, side quests and unique characters.
The story mainly follows Talion and Celebrimbor in their journey to defeat Sauron with the story being driven forward by Talion’s need to secure a hold in Mordor, so the story involves what is needed in order to achieve this goal, such as branding orcs to be part of your army, capturing forces and assisting the remains of humanity still present in Mordor.
The story is itself engaging and tries its best to not be too straight forward with enough twists and turns to keep most people engaged. There are plenty of interesting characters, with all the Orcs being surprisingly in-depth, with hundreds of Orcs all having their own unique personalities, abilities, goals and aesthetic. Alongside a long list of in-game characters, there is also plenty of authentic characters from the original books, such as Gollum, the Nazgul, the Balrogs and Sauron. These characters are brought into the world of the game in a smooth fashion and are all made meaningful in the progression of the story, and they are not just shoved in for the sake of fan service.
Anyone who is going into this expecting the story to be very similar to Lord of The Rings is likely to be disappointed as it is structured much more along the side of an action game, instead of the adventure and lore building that is present in Tolkien’s work. The game’s story may be inspired and in the same world as The Lord of The Rings, but Shadow of War carries itself much more as a role-playing action game.
Controls
At first glance, the options for the controls are quite overwhelming due to the insane number of things that you can do in-game. There is a button for almost everything, and this can be a downside to many players as it can be a lot of controls that they have to remember.
On Pc, the controls are responsive and move fluidly in all aspects of the game, be it combat, climbing, running and other elements of movement. The game can, however, sometimes struggle to move between these types of activity as, for instance, if you are attempting to dodge an enemy’s attack while you are near a building, Talion will try to scale it, leaving you defenseless and open to attack.
Overall, the controls are well done, with the only issue coming up that although the movement by itself is seamless when attempting to move to another form of movement, Shadow of Mordor can struggle.
The Nemesis system
This system was so crucial to the game’s success that it needs its own separate section. The Nemesis system was something that was introduced in the previous game that was unique and created specifically for that game. The nemesis system involves a form of spider web that all the Orc characters are intertwined in, meaning that every action that an Orc performs, whether it is a murder, raid or beast hunt, affects all the other Orcs.
The Orcs are also separated by a ranking system where there are War chief’s, captains and bodyguards, so some Orcs would have authority over others, which can change the dynamic between a particular mixture of Orcs completely. Orcs are naturally greedy and so will always be challenging each other in order to obtain a higher-ranking position which is where the ranking system comes into the nemesis system.
An example of how the nemesis system works is that, let’s say you were to kill one of the war chiefs, thsi will create a power vacuum in which the war lord’s bodyguards will challenge each other to duels to try and claim the position of the war chief. From there, whatever Orc takes the place of the next war chief is going to be in danger of being backstabbed by the Orc or Orcs that lost their chance of becoming a War chief.
Another example would be that if you were to humiliate a war chief in front of his captains by exposing one of his fears like Morgul flies or fire, then the other captains are more likely to stage a coup and overthrow that war chief as they have seen weakness in the war chief as he no longer brings as much fear among them.
Through the use of this system, the player has a direct effect on the world around them in a non-linear way allowing for a unique progression through the story for every player. The system also makes it so that the artificial intelligence does not need the player's input in order to alter the course of the story as the Orcs will still struggle for power between each other regardless of what happens.
The nemesis system is arguably the most significant addition to this game and was an excellent breath of fresh air; it added a substantial element of world-building and gave the player the feeling of a living, breathing world. It would also help to inspire new ideas in other game developers that could make them more likely to take risks since they have shown that an idea like this can be a great success.
Overall personal experience
My Overall personal experience would be that I thoroughly enjoyed my time spent playing Shadow of Mordor. It was an entertaining and interactive world that allowed me to feel that I was part of the story of The Lord of The Rings. The story engaged me, and the combat was enjoyable as well as challenging. The graphics of the game were absolutely stunning with great use of visual effects, and the controls were fluid.
Overall, I would give the game a score of nine out of ten as there are only just a few minor flaws that hold it back but it is overall a fantastic gaming experience.