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Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor - First Impressions

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RATING: 9/10

VERDICT: REFRESHINGLY INTRIGUING

REVIEW BY:  KRISHNA BAHIRWANI

PUBLISHER: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment

DEVELOPER: Monolith Productions

PEGI RATING: Rating Pending (18+ expected)

GENRE: Action 

PLATFORMS: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Windows PC

PLAYERS: Single player

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor  in my opinion is a beautiful and well written Role Playing Game(RPG) that had me hooked from the moment I set my hands on it. This game gives fans the ability to write their own story in Tolken's world. The game begins  on the night of Sauron’s return to Mordor, as his Black Captains brutally execute the Rangers of the Black Gate . You get to be Talion, a ranger who loses everything and everybody he holds dear, only to find that he has been banished from death by a curse. As Talion's story unfolds, players become aquainted with the spirit of that compels him, discover the source of the Rings of Power and confront the inescapable agent of Talion's downfall .
With a story that is set between the events of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor delivers an experience which has been long lost to gaming, especially at launch, packed with great animations,responsive controls and enemies unique to your gamplay instance because of the dynamic ever-changing world that your actions shape, this game is not something you want to miss out on, so if everything I describe is your cup of tea then go pick up the game without a doubt. 

What is to love
l Unleash the Power of the Wraith: Players command Wraith Powers to orchestrate and execute their vengeance in brutal melee, ruthless stealth and intuitive ranged combat.
l Unleash the Power of the Nemisis system: Players are introduced to a new way of looking at epic battles and death in a video game which is absolutely brilliant.
l Dominate Your Enemies: Very enjoyable combat which gives players appropriate amounts of choice with each foe having their own exploitable personality, memory and traits for players to understand and conquer.
l Bend Mordor to Your Will: Players can turn their enemies against each other by making them assassinate, terrorize, sacrifice or spy. Because of the brilliant Nemisis system, every enemy the player crosses path with is distinct and has the potential to become a personal archenemy through the course of the game making it your unique version of the game.
l Interesting Story in Middle-earth: Although the game might deviate a little from the already existing lore, this story which is placed in the time between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings Trilogies, lets players uncover the source of the Rings of Power and become the most feared warrior in Mordor. 
l Great Progression: Advance skills and abilities, and upgrade weapons using a comprehensive system designed using rune rewards and impressive skill trees that are crafted according to the player’s strategy and their unique enemies.

Where the game can improve
l No SLI support yet, although it is expected to come.
l Most missions are built around fighting orcs, so if you don't enjoy the combat this game might not be as entertianing
l Some missions are stealth only
l The graphical demands aren't justified. No reason why it would use 3/6GB of video ram, textures aren't that amazing.

Pure Awesomeness: Nemesis System
The killer feature that makes Shadow of Mordor so amazing is its nemisis system which is both simple and brilliant. 
In real life, everybody we meet has their own set of strengths and weaknesses, and this has been emulated beautifully with the Orc captains that have abilities which make them harder to kill such as being immune to a kind of attack or weaknesses which make them vulnerable to a specific kind of attack like fire.
If you kill the Orc, brilliant, you can move forward but if they manage to survive then they rank up and become more powerful but it doesn't stop there. The orc also remembers you and what happened during the fight the next time you cross paths with the same orc giving the entire thing an extremely personal feel. The same way if you're in a big fight and an orc that is not a captain kills you he gets promoted to a captain which gives a true sense of real life succession.
When you die or as time in the game progresses, orcs don't remain in the same positions as lower ranked captains may challenge higher ranking captains showing you that the game is not static even if you are not interacting with the game. Thes result of these change of positions could mean some orc captains dying and some getting more powerful. They can also train to improve themselves which you as the player could interupt to stop their progress.

This game is great on all the fronts but if you want to know the biggest reason to buy it, it's definitely the nemisis system, no other experience comes close to developing stories in game so organically. I really hope this type of game-play is something games in the future will implement because its simply gaming and exploration at its absolute best. This system gives the game great re-playability because the abilities of your enemy are always different and because of that every time you play you need a different plan of attack. This system challenges you and makes you think of new ways to do things. It really feels like you are a part of something dynamic and personalized making you feel like you are constructing the vendettas against the characters in the game.

Combat mastered
Shadow of Mordor is derivative on many fronts but that is not necessarily a bad thing. It brings aspects from both the Assassin's Creed and Arkham games into a Middle Earth settings and executes them perfectly. It takes what makes these games great and adds some unique features that makes the experience of playing the game truly rewarding, the developers obviously thought if we dont do things well we learn from that, why shouldn't we learn to keep the things we do really well ? In fact i feel like the free running in Shadow of Mordor might actually be better than its inspirations. 
The combat system is well created and does not allow you to just attack a group of enemies and come out alive using mindless hack and slash, you need timing and long hit streaks that end if you miss an attack. The environment can also be used in effective ways when dealing with enemies to attack or to distract.

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