openmik2

[openmik2]

Middle Earth: Shadow of War- Review

So just recently I've decided to replay through Middle-Earth: Shadow of War. For those of you who don't know Shadow of War is an open world fantasy RPG that is the second installation of the series, using it's popular predecessor, Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor, as the jumping off point. The question is, Is it worth coming back to?In this review I'll be deciding whether or not this game can be considered "precious" or if it's just another big pile of shrakh.

First up let's start with the plot. You play as Talion, A Black Gate guard who is, by all means, dead. Not got your attention yet? How about if I tell you he is sharing a body with an Elf smithy by the name of Celebrimbor which in turn gives you all these magical abilities like dominating creatures and orcs to make them fight for you? Got you now? Good. Essentially the story revolves around you and ol' Celebrimbor trying to take over Mordor to defeat Sauron once and for all with the use of your new ring of power. As far as stories go this one has me hooked from the get go! The story is split into multiple character quests spread across all the regions in the game so you'll definitely have your fill of scenery and Nemesis (we'll get to that later) encounters. One great way this game keeps you on your toes is by introducing new features constantly! You can be 8 hours deep into this game and it can still tell you "oh hey you've got this far so you have the ability to (spoilers) now". It's a great way to keep the game fresh and really feel like you're getting every penny you can out of it. Let's talk about the aforementioned nemesis encounters. One of my favourite things about this game is the unique encounters you can have with orc captains throughout the game. You have the option to hunt them down or alternatively, they can hunt you. Hunting them requires you to find "worms", lesser orcs with information about captains, their strengths and, more importantly, their weaknesses. These "worms" are scattered all over the world and can also be used to send death threats to captains in the hopes of gaining higher levels of loot. Watch out though, not all captain take kindly to being threatened! Captains can appear anywhere at anytime. When you fight a captain and get him to "break" you then have the option to shame him (decreasing his level OR on the rare occasion INCREASING his level and sending him doo lalley, for lack of a better word), Making him one of your own soldiers in your ever growing army against the dark lord or choosing to fight to the death if the orc isn't fond of betraying his current master ( this is also rare but does happen) The great thing about the Nemesis system is that you just don't know what's going to happen. e.g. You could kill an Orc captain only for him to cheat death and to suddenly appear at the worst possibly time (possibly when you're already fighting two other orc captains) to exact revenge upon you OR you could have a favourite orc in your army only for you to turn around and see him standing there with the word BETRAYAL under his name, spouting traitorous words and thirsting for your blood. Honestly lopping his traitorous head off hurt me a lot more than it hurt him... Each Orc is said to be unique and, to be honest, I'm inclined to agree with this quite ambitious statement. Sure there's a few with the same first name but different profession and there are only a finite amount of voice actors in this world but for all intents and purposes each orc has it's own strengths and weaknesses. You'll think you've seen it all but I myself have played this game for about 80 hours now and just the other day I found a new orc captain I had never seen before so keep that in mind when you're playing through! The strategic player will want to play against a captains weaknesses for example If the captain you're hunting happens to be afraid of caragors, it's probably a good bet to run into his settlement with a small pack of them. Then watch him run away squealing.

Onto the gameplay, a fairly important part of video game culture, would you not agree? I'm not the best at summarizing but I reckon I can do it here with just one word. Smooth. If there's one thing Monolith Productions knows, it's how to make a game feel and look dynamic and free flowing. The combat is very well executed (pun intended) with a large skill tree that let's you mix up playstyles to suit your needs. You can mix and match the skills as much as you want until you find the style that suits you best, whether it be stealthy as a church mouse or gung ho like a grizzly bear on steroids. The combat system is the same as the system from the Shadow of Mordor game, with obvious signs of being heavily inspired by Rocksteady's Batman: Arkham series. If you are not familiar with this then let me break it down for you. You hit "X" to slash, "Y" to counter, "B" to stun and "A" to dodge. I personally see nothing wrong with these combat controls although some may deem it a "button mashing" game which y'know... technically all games are so... But I digress. The system works and it works very well. The controls are simple and easy to pick up, whether you're new to the genre or coming back for more it won't be long before you feel like a bonifide badass blademaster. The movement and climbing is also pretty smooth apart from those few times where you mean to climb up one wall but end up leaping backwards into hordes of angry vengeful captains out for your blood. If you've played any of the earlier Assassins Creed games you'll know exactly what I'm talking about, as will your demolished controller.

Let's have a look at the online features. Shadow of War keeps to the old adage "if it aint broke, don't fix it" as you can see by the leaving in of the vendetta side missions from the original Shadow of Mordor. The vendetta missions remain the same as from the original game where you simply are tasked with going after a captain in another players world whom is responsible for killing said player. This rewards you with "vendetta boxes" which contain gear and possibly powerful orc followers so don't miss out! Also who doesn't like a bit of vengeance even if it's on someone else's behalf. The newest addition to the online features is a lot more substantial. Throughout the game you will be tasked to take and hold forts all across Mordor using your fresh army of orcs in the single player. This feature is also used as a new online game mode where you are tasked to attack OTHER players strongholds, facing up against the orcs that THEY have dominated and chosen to protect their fortress. It's super fun to pit your own selection of specially chosen orcs against someone else's and seeing who comes out on top. This feature also awards gear on completion and player attacks on your fort only affect your fortress control after you finish the game so enjoy that while you can.    Another new addition to the series would be the gear; pickups in the form of swords, armour, daggers, bows and (naturally) rings. These range in rarity and power; the rarest and most powerful of which can only be found by defeating legendary orcs and using their weaknesses against them. Each piece of equipment has one slot for you to insert a "gem".  The gems come in different categories e.g. wealth gems, life gems and strength gems. These gems give you bonuses depending on what kind of equipment you use them on. For example, if you use a wealth gem on a weapon, you're more likely to gain loot from your kills whereas if you use a wealth gem on a piece of armour you increase the XP gained from fallen enemies and so on so forth. In summary Middle Earth: Shadow of War is definitely worth an initial playthrough and after your first completion of the game you will no doubt be ready to craft new unique stories between you and the Orc leaders of Mordor in no time! Take my word(s) for it, you'll have a blast! 

 Final Score: 8/10

[openmik2]

All the books I read in 2020. The only good thing to come out of lockdown.

p.s. can you tell I like horror?

[openmik2]

So I met this radiologist on a dating app

I asked her what she looks for in men

mostly tumors, she said

[openmik2]

The only person I wish to be better than is the man I was yesterday