This is exactly why I raised an eyebrow when I saw that the combat was a copy of the Arkham series (Assassin's creed? Wow didn't notice that). I don't have the game, but I find that Assassin's Creed/Batman Arkham series combat in a Lord of the Rings game is just an awkward choice. What could have possibly worked is a strategic/third person/war/action mix. AKA being able to fight by yourself and gather armies to fight with you. Not just the Orcs, but the other inhabitants of middle earth as well. Each one could have different motivations that you could try to decipher and you could decide to bribe them, threaten them, or just do as they ask.
It would also help to flesh out the character A LOT more if that is his main motivation and address the morality in...well...I dunno killing possessed Orcs (From what I gathered, the Orcs are possessed in this universe) and possibly doing it against his will.
It looks like a great game in terms of gameplay, but I'm really tired of the Arkham-ish combat that we see far too often in other games.
Oh and that idea I posted above, probably sucks so feel free to ignore it if it sounds stupid.
Something with armies would have been very cool. I think that's one of the things, in Lord of the Rings it's either fairly small struggles against a few enemies or it's vast battles with armies. In Mordor you you can walk into a fortress and kill 40 orcs without much trouble and the day-to-day gameplay never results in an actual battle. Even the Lord of the Rings RPG The Third Age managed to get some real battles in.
The weird thing is, it feels like they're going to make a point above the morality of him literally possessing orcs and then making their heads explode, because in LOTR that's always going to be an action that leads to corruption and evil. But they don't actually do it. It feels like they decided to save it for a DLC or a sequel or something.
A lot of the times the story just doesn't function on a very basic level too. There's this one time where this guy decides to blow up a statue to help fight Sauron and assist you in your plans, he seems to be sacrificing everything, even his people's lives to achieve it. nd you go along with it and collect all the blasting powder and actively protect the bomb, killing hundreds of orcs to make it work. And then immediately after you push the bomb literally with your own hands into position and blow up the statue and you basically say to the guy "This is monstrous, you've sacrificed you people for this. How could you?"
And to top it off his response for why he doomed his people to death by doing all this is "They needed hope."
One thing about this game; it's heavily implied that this is an alternate continuity... so in other words, it's not really meant to be a traditional Middle-Earth game. Not to mention the fact that it's focused on Mordor, not all of Middle-Earth, giving a rare and unique look at Orcs that hasn't been done before.
Perfect? Hardly, but still worth the look imo, especially since the Arkham + AC gameplay are enjoyable on their own, enhancing the real focus of this game (the Nemesis System).
Omegafire17:
That could explain the lack of focus on the other armies but that still doesn't explain the story faults as mentioned by Tom. And I still would have liked to see some armies thrown into the mix and attacking Mordor but that's just personal preference.
It's also possibly personal preference that the Arkham gameplay is getting repetitive and the Nemesis system really is the real focus of the game and seems interesting. But still, I would have preferred some political conflict with other humans to gain support for your revenge.
Do you mind explaining the rare and unique look at Orcs that hasn't been done before? Cause they look like the same Orcs interested in warfare to me.
Frankly, at best, the story at it's core isn't anything we haven't seen before; that is not really in question. But arguably, the game is not trying to make us interested in the story so much as testing out the mix of gameplay, both older and the newest Nemesis - a test run, if you will. And gameplay-wise, even with some complaints about 'copying' other franchise gameplay, it's been mostly successful in that area, critically and commerically.
Plus as far as the orcs, actually, the common conceptions of orcs is that they're dumb (to the point that most can't speak even), only care about war, and otherwise flanderized things like that. Here in Shadows of Mordor, they have a society, individual quirks/names/weaknesses/you-name-it, pretty much all of them talk in addition to speaking in more modern terms than the humans/elves - fitting, considering Tolkein originally wrote them based off his fears of the Industrialized Evil trope. They have favorite food (grog), a military chain of command, numerous ways to go up the ranks and prove themselves to their comrades, etc.
Yes, it's still a society that is a 'bit' bloodthristy + centered around fighting, proud even, but it's considerably more nuanced than many other depictions of them - which is what I find rare and unique.
Then again, about the story, it only looks like your standard everyday revenge plot... but if you interpret it right, there seems to be a much more corrupting influence behind the scenes (courtesy of the wraith Celebrimbor)
@Omegafire, I like the depiction of the orcs in the game. That was probably the part that felt in the games 'spirit'. And I agree the gameplay was fun and fairly innovative, stupid non-existent difficulty curve aside.
The thing is 'alternate history' isn't really the problem, it's not that the facts are wrong. If anything, the facts are the closest the game comes to being a real Middle Earth game. But everything you would go to see a Lord of the Rings film or read a LOTR book for, wasn't in this game. And that's problematic because the only reason they're using the "Middle Earth" name is to attract people who want the kind of experience they'd find in a Lord of the Rings book/film.
Middle Earth Shadows Of Mordor is like someone making a film called "American Pie Graduation Day" and having it turn out to be a Shaun of the Dead style zombie dramedy. And maybe someone's meticulously given every zombie the name of all the side characters from past American Pie films.
The end product is good, and it's fun. But if you went to see an American Pie film, you're not going to have that satisfaction. As I've said the thing that made Batman Arkham Asylum amazing was that someone created brilliant innovative gameplay designed to perfectly capture the spirit of it's source material. What do you do when a company comes along and does that, but then slaps some other name on top of it?
I would love to see a version of this game where the setting suits the gameplay and tone. Either find some 90's comic franchise, or create their own IP, maybe make it sci-fi or some Game of Throne's esque grim-fantasy. That will be so good and it will actually make sense and be full of logical design decisions (admittedly still with a poor story and ultimately shallow gameplay), but until then the game only works when you try to completely disconnect it from the franchise it named itself after.
I think that's just it though; Middle-Earth has so much material and tone, that your average video game on standard platforms just can't do it without being rushed. Thus far, the only one that's done it fairly right is the MMORPG, which has the capacity to fit it all in (still expanding at that), and the audience expectation that MMO's have detail and playability, in addition to all the rest... but a PS3 game has the average playability of 40 hours or so.
So really, they can never make a complete Middle-Earth experience, but merely experiences based off it - not without significant investment, at least.
Also, imo, seeing something you were expecting, but getting something else that you didn't (including video games having gameplay that isn't specifically tailored to it's lore/myths/etc)... isn't a problem in many cases, because it's not really required to be that much tailor-made to be enjoyable, I believe.
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Great Game, Mediocre Middle Earth Game
What made Batman: Arkham Asylum incredible was that it was a unique game with engaging mechanics, designed from the ground up to make you feel like you're playing Batman.
Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor was a unique game with engaging mechincs, designed from the ground up to make you feel like you're playing Batman: Arkham Asylum. Wait, what? Oh and there's more than a touch of Assassin's Creed.
It makes Shadows of Mordor a really hard game to review, because, this game is a fantastic achievement, but what do you say when it achieved something entirely different from what it was meant to? Shadows went into an English lit exam and proved the monotone convergence theorem in calculus. Good job?
In purely terms of being an adaptation, this is probably the worst Lord of the Rings game ever created. It's kind of incredible how every single little detail wasn't designed to capture the feel of Middle Earth. The main characters waking animation is a swagger from Batman Arkham Asylum. He stands like a 2000's Assassin Creed anti-hero. He moves like an Assassins Creed protagonist. The core gameplay loop involves diving from towers and slaughtering orcs in the must detailed and gruesome way possible. You can make orcs heads explode and watch as they run in terror. A comedic side character constantly references self-help books. A major gameplay feature involves collecting 'intel' through torture. The motivation is the most lazy "they killed my family, I want revenge" thing ever and it's frequently nonsensical.
The words they were trying to embed into the games DNA were "visceral" "powerful" and "anti-hero". It feels like a early 2000's comic, just after the Dark Age. There is absolutely nothing "noble" or "epic" or "Middle-Ages" or "chivalrous" or "sincere", "straight-faced".
The gameplay is very fun, if incredibly shallow. It has a difficulty curve where the first hour or so might be fairly difficult and then after that there's no reason why you should ever die. It's trivial to kill 40 orcs in ten seconds. But the assassinations and nemesis system feel organic and incredibly interesting. You really feel like you're hunting down targets and making plans on the fly, all towards meaningful political goals. Shadows of Mordor is a better Assassins Creed game than Assassins Creed. It's just, why did they do that?