Build a Legend in New LOTR Video Game Shadow of Mordor
January 24, 2014 by dracs
IGN recently took a look at the hotly anticipated Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor, an awesome looking upcoming video game that promises to combine elements of the Batman Arkham games and Assassin's Creed with the dark realm of Tolkien's Mordor.
In this game you play as Talion, a ranger of Gondor who was guarding the Black Gates of Mordor in the time between the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings. You were then when Sauron and his Ring Wraiths returned and reclaimed Mordor, killing everyone you knew and leaving you for dead.
But as we all know, there is a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. A wraith spirit brought Talion back to the world of the living, granting him the ability to swap between the normal world and world we see whenever Frodo or Bilbo put on the One Ring. It also lets him scare the living daylights out of orcs!
The mot interesting thing about Shado of Mordor, and the feature which IGN do a great job of showing in this gameplay video, is the Nemesis System. This cool feature means each time you play through you will be faced with unique enemies.
If you let an enemy live it will harbor a grudge against you and you will probably find yourself facing them again, only now they will have been promoted in Sauron's army and gathered a group of followers in order to take you down.
The tactical combat and intriguing Nemesis System makes this the first game that has tempted me to pick up one of the next gen consoles, though fortunately it looks like it will be getting a release on PS3 and Xbox 360 as well.
While Tolkien purists might not be happy that the main character, being a wraith/human hybrid, is something previously unseen in the Lord of the Rings background, it does open up a bunch of cool gameplay opportunities, which, combined with the unique enemies, should allow for a fun and personal gaming experience.
Are you looking forward to Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor?
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I’m not sure what to make of this… Watching the trailer got me wanting the game- but at the same time I can see a few things that, did it not have LotR in the title and play like AC, would immediately put me off. I love Lord of the Rings (Obviously!! Who doesn’t?) and Assassins Creed is one of my favourite games (at least the first few- I got a little bored of a new game every year with increasingly implausible settings) so on that front I’m not surprised that it DOES, perhaps despite my better judgement, have me… Read more »
Game looks pretty slick. I might have to give this another watch considering the nemesis system but it does feel a bit janky, A nice touch, but maybe too forced.
BoW Ben
Hmm, just had another look at it and it reminded me of a couple more points…
1.) The orcs voices are too much like 40k “imma-stoopid-ork”, rather than the LotR style of snivelling, conniving orcs seen in the films.
2.) Not keen on the different style of eye and helmet for Sauron. I’m assuming its meant to indicate this is prior to the events of the LotR trilogy, but they just didn’t look as cool IMHO.
Anyway, that said, I’m probably gonna be picking this one up when its released- despite the negatives this still looks like great fun!
This is like a choose your own adventure book in video game form. Fun idea. Not sure why they had to mumble and crumble Tolkien’s work? So much history, backstory and rich depth, yet, they had to pervert it to force more Nemesis moments on us.