[Perry] Shadows of Mordor

Recently, I’ve spent some time in Middle Earth again, slaughtering a nigh incomprehensible number of orcs.

A game was released somewhat recently titled “Middle Earth: Shadows of Mordor”.

Because apparently? Without the “Middle Earth” in its title, no one would recognize that it was supposed to be part of the Tolkien IP, apparently.

But forget all that.

Let’s move away from the silly, overly long title.

In the game, you play as a fellow named Talion, a ranger who lives in Mordor with his family. Apparently, Mordor was livable in back in the day before Sauron woke up again, all big and bad…or something?

Listen, I don’t know, alright? The game, really isn’t known for its story.

I mean, the story is there and it’s kind of serviceable…but that’s really it. It’s just a vehicle to explain the various ways that you get to kill orcs.

And you will kill orcs.

It’s probably fair to say that you’ll kill a LOT of orcs throughout the course of the game. Single-handedly, you’ll commit what amounts to an orcish genocide.

And it never really becomes boring.

That’s the important thing.

The story is just there, the visuals are clean but nothing to write home about, and the game steals a lot of its DNA from other successful games in the past…but it never really gets boring.

So here’s a look at how the game works and plays.

In the introduction, you see Talion given his reason for slaughtering ALL the orcs in the world, and you also see him imbued with the power of immortality….but not quite.

He can still die? He just…sort of doesn’t stay dead.

If you’ve played any of the recent Assassin’s Creed games, the running, climbing, and general traversing of the environment will feel incredibly familiar to you.

If you’ve played any of the Batman: Arkham games, the combat will be as comfortable as slipping on a well-worn shoe.

If you’ve read ANYTHING, EVER, the story will not surprise you in the least.

And yet…

Here’s what they add that’s new.

They call it the Nemesis system and this is how it works.

Sauron’s orcish army is arranged in a command structure, of sorts. You have your warchiefs at the top, captains under them, bodyguards, commanders…what have you.

During the course of the game, if you KILL someone, generally, another orc will get promoted to take their place. If you kill the right orcs at the right time? Various orcs can end up getting promoted to warchief. And YOU will be directly responsible.

If an orc kills you? They get a raise in their current power level. And if they get strong enough? They will go and challenge the next orc up, all on their own, and fight him for his spot on the command chain.

If he wins, he’ll take the guy’s spot, usually gain additional power levels, new innate traits (things like becoming immune to stealth attacks or ranged attacks), and often gain a little coterie of bodyguards in the process.

That’s not all, of course.

Throughout the game, you’ll see various “power struggle” icons on the map that you can go to and participate in? Or ignore as you choose. And these struggles will resolve themselves over time.

It makes for a shifting and fluid orcish organizational structure for you to try and exploit at the right moments.

Furthermore, later in the game, you get the ability to brand orcs with your power and make them your servants. Enslave a lowly nobody orc? And you have a useful distraction in combat.

Enslave a war chief? And you get control of him and all the orcs under his command.

Oh yeah.

Now, there’s a reason why it’s called the Nemesis system.

Because you can actually get killed? But you’ll always come back? Orcs you fight will remember you.

If you fight an orc and get killed, the next time you come back to life and face him again? He’ll remember and taunt you. Do it enough times and the orc will claim that you’re boring him and that he wants you to stay dead this time.

You can also leave orcs alive when you challenge them (the captains at least). You can execute them as they get low health (head choppy choppy), or you can ‘injure’ them enough to defeat them, but not kill them? Or they can freak out at the sight of you and run away.

Every time an orc is defeated in an encounter with you but survives? It’ll show some mark of the encounter next time. Defeat them but leave them alive once or twice? And they’ll bear additional scars or maybe have lost an ear or something the next time.

If you get really curious and you hunt one orc down, over and over again, and never execute him and just constantly defeat him to hunt him down later?

Well….After about the 5th or 6th time, he’ll look like he has a canvas sack tied to his head to keep it together >.>”

It’s a really fun game.

The Nemesis system gives even the little peons a decent amount of personality, which makes it fun to hunt them down for more killing. The elements of design borrowed from other games are used with enough flare here that you don’t care that they’ve been lifted.

If you wanted a new, fun title to pass a bit of time as the holiday season approaches, or if orcs killed your family and you feel the need to get some revenge?

I’d really recommend checking this one out.

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