And since encountering the same enemies again is also random sometimes you can go hours without seeing anyone you know, and sometimes they can dogpile you all at once – almost breaking the game’s presentation in the process. The system isn’t perfect though, and as you can imagine a lot of the specific encounters and promotions can seem to occur largely at random. Middle-Earth: Shadow Of Mordor (PS4) – unfortunately Battle Cat here steers like a cow This information greatly improves your chances in a rematch, but rather than just killing your nemesis you can choose to spare them in battle and turn them into allies – giving them specific goals of assassinating other key figures or spreading dissent. These snitches will reveal what kind of weapons your opponent is likely to use, whether they’re cowards or have any special phobias, or exactly what troops they command.

You can even prepare for the fight ahead of time by roughing up informants from lower down the ranks. In a fight they’ll barge through their underlings to get to you, who in turn chant their name as if settling down to watch a celebrity boxing match. Orcs won’t just rise in rank depending on how they fare against you but they’ll also remember you when you come back, mocking you if you ran away or showing off battle scars if you’ve previously provided them with one. This is the Nemesis system: an entirely dynamic means with which to manufacture personal opponents out of the faceless hordes. As your enemies rise in rank their abilities and number of followers increase, and your primary goal of taking out Sauron’s most important commanders becomes more and more complicated. Whoever defeats you will invariably get some sort of promotion, and since time passes while you’re resurrecting yourself a sequence of losses can see the hierarchy of the orcish troops change considerably. Since he’s already dead you might be thinking that there isn’t much to be lost if Talion fails in battle, but although it doesn’t make much difference to him it does affect the world around him. But considering how satisfying yet accessible the combat is in those games that’s not necessarily a criticism – and taking on dozens of orcs at once, chaining combos to initiate instant-kill executions, is undeniably entertaining. In terms of basic stealth and action the game really is just Batman (also published by Warner Bros.) with a different cowl on. Naturally peaceful reconciliation is not foremost on Talion’s mind, and so he spends the game working up through the ranks of orcs and uruk-hai in and around Mordor. At the beginning of the game he and his family are murdered by Sauron’s forces, but he is unexpectedly resurrected and forced to share a body with a mysterious spirit (who is later revealed to be a character from the books, and whose representation here is nuanced enough that it may convince diehard fans to view the game in a more favourable light). The backstory certainly doesn’t seem like something Tolkien would write, as you play as a Ranger (the same as Aragon) called Talion. Instead it’s Rocksteady’s Batman games and Assassin’s Creed which are the primary touchstones here, with the Lord of the Rings licence merely providing an easily recognisable name for gamers to latch onto. Especially not when Lego The Lord of the Rings is the best game in recent history.īut really the greatest influences on Shadow Of Mordor have nothing to do with Middle-earth. But people have been making terrible Lord of the Rings games for decades now, so it’s not like the franchise has a rich interactive heritage to be defiled. To be fair, a grimdark version of Middle-earth, aimed squarely at those who only watch Lord of the Rings for the fight scenes, does sound like a terrible idea. Everybody else though is likely to see this as the surprise hit of the autumn. Although considering his son Christopher already hates the movies, because they pander too much to the action crowd, perhaps that should be extended to any purist that only enjoys the books. The irony about Shadow Of Mordor is that the one person that isn’t likely to have enjoyed it is J.R.R. Will The Lord of the Rings finally get a video game tie-in worthy of its legacy? Or is this really just a Batman game in warg’s clothing?

Middle-Earth: Shadow Of Mordor (PS4) – these two won’t be becoming a nemesis anytime soon

Shadow of mordor review