It sounds too good to be true: the game responds dynamically to your actions, shifting the Orc’s hierarchy as you make your way through and generating a roster of enemies who look, speak, behave and fight very differently. It sounds so simple, but it’s bracingly surprising to simply sneak up on an isolated band of Uruk-hai and start tripping off the various systems Monolith gives you to dispatch them – safe in the knowledge that they all work as they should.Īnd that’s not taking into account Shadows’ trump card – the Nemesis system.
#Shadow of mordor image simulator#
The team then gets the story out of the way as quickly as possible, and then doesn’t waste development time on a card game simulator that no one wants it reduces the size of the map and trims back the 12 million tedious side quests to a handful that actually benefit the player in gameplay. Monolith does what anyone who’s played Assassin’s Creed recently wishes Ubisoft would do – it makes the parkour tighter, makes the stealth coherent and consistent, rips out the combat model and replaces it with something inspired by Rocksteady’s Batman. Which makes it exactly 100 times more enjoyable than almost every high-profile game with literary or filmic pretensions. It’s told with the economy and flair you’d expect from one of the writers of Red Dead Redemption and everyone involved sees the plot for what it is – a peg to hang a game on. It sounds awful, doesn’t it? But Monolith sends out an early sign of quality with an introductory cut-scene that doesn’t outstay its welcome and features voice actors who don’t sound actively appalled by the dialogue. The stage is set for you to sneak across a battered landscape, doling out revenge on Sauron’s minions. In an assault by Sauron’s army you and your family are killed, but you find yourself returned to life and twinned with a mysterious wraith who gives you magical powers. You are Talion, a ranger of Gondor responsible for guarding the Black Gate of Mordor. The story of Mordor, much like the rest of the game, is a Frankenstein’s monster.
It’s also a glorious return to form for one of the most interesting developers out there – Washington-based Monolith Productions – whose track record is inconsistent but features glorious oddities such as No One Lives Forever, FEAR and Condemned. It turns out that Shadow of Mordor is that rarest of things in video game culture - an unexpected knockout punch. The game wears its influences shamelessly: this is Arkham’s Creed with a side order of Grand Theft Far Cry. And the tick list of features from the back of the box does very little to generate much more excitement – beyond the one noticeable exception I’ll get to later.
0 kommentar(er)
