TrickPlays: Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor

Hi there!, It’s Mugu again here.

This week I’ll be reviewing Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor and from now on I’m gonna call it SoM for short.

SoM it’s the last game on the J.R. R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth franchise, in this case, a Third Person Action/Stealth game, similar to Assassin’s Creed and Batman Arkham games.

It takes place between the events of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of The Rings. The player incarnates Talion, a Ranger who is Captain and guards the Black Gate of Mordor.

The game starts with Talion and his family being killed by Sauron’s army but Talion doesn’t die at all and he will seek revenge against their killers.

SoM uses a modified version of the Monolith’s LithTech Jupiter EX, an engine that brought to life most F.E.A.R games and all the Condemned ones, all of these games were FPS and they emphasized on horror, but the developers made a great job with the engine  and it handled the game incredible well.

What I liked about it:

• Gameplay-wise, the game is great, Talion really feels great to play with.

• Graphics are really good, but it doesn’t push the envelope.

• The nemesis system is awesome, I loved it and it’s the core of the gameplay without any doubt.

What I didn’t liked:

• As you advance in the game, some skills feel too overpowered, like the double finish/brand move.

• If you just play the main quests doing only the required the game is pretty much short.

• Some enemy types are too easy.

What I think that could’ve been improved:

• The ending gave me the impression that it was rushed (a bit too much) for a sequel, and I would love to play a new SoM but it just didn’t feel right.

• I like J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lore, I’ve seen the movies and read some books (not all, though) and I don’t know if Talion is mentioned or appears in any of them, but the I think that the story it’s just OK, nothing amazing but coming from J.R.R’s lore I think they could’ve done better.

• The “bosses” (warchiefs) feel like a harder Elite Uruk, but nothing special.

It was worth my time / Should you play it?:

Well, at first I didn’t have so much hype for the game since I didn’t like the last AC games and Batman Arkham Origins wasn’t that good, but I really liked the game on the overall and if you like LOTR/Middle-earth and AC / Batman Arkham games I think you will really enjoy it. But if this is not your case, maybe there are other games at the moment to play.

Screenshots: