A Linux Gamer's Review of Middle-Earth: Shadow Of Mordor

The Gameplay ( 9 /10 )

A few friends have been listening to my play Shadow Of Mordor this weekend, and the only way I could describe this game to them was to call it “Assassin's Creed meets The Witcher meets Devil May Cry.” The game has the parkour, stealth and vertical exploration of Assassin's Creed, it has the open world exploration of The Witcher, and it has the combat system of a toned down Devil May Cry.

One of the central ideas behind Shadow Of Mordor is the Orc Army Hierarchy. The Hierarchy covers everything from unnamed soldiers, Captains, Veterans, Elites, before finally culminating in The Warchiefs. As Talion's shadow graces the desolate land of Mordor he will kill, and occasionally be killed by any one of these orcs. Coming across a named Orc, a Captain, is a bit like fighting a mini boss-- they have more health and better armor than standard orcs, but they will also have “Strengths” and “Weaknesses”-- personality traits about the Captain you can find out by interrogating his men or by helping the slaves.

Strengths are anything that might improve the Captain's odds in a fight: he might be immune to ranged attacks from your bow, forcing you to get up close and personal. The Captain might be immune to stealth attacks, taking away your ability to sneak up on him and deal massive damage to him with a well placed dagger. He might have a gang that follows him around permanently, making it much harder to get the jump on him. Or basically anything else: one I fought loved pain so much that when you got him down to 50 percent health for the first time he would automatically heal to 100 percent and get increased damage.

Why fight Captains yourself when you can have the orcs do it for you.

Weaknesses are anything you can exploit to weaken the Captain. The captain might have a fear of fire making it so if you caught him on fire that he would run from the fight. A captain might have a specific weakness to stealth attacks allowing you to bypass the fight entirely, assuming you can sneak up on him and one-shot him, or perhaps he's known for fleeing from a fight once it starts going the wrong way-- that's a bad weakness.

A Knife In The Dark

You see, any time an orc fights Talion and lives-- whether by killing your character or just getting out of the way of his wrath he will increase in power. If there is a gap in the power structure, because Talion killed one of the captains, and an orc kills you then that orc will be promoted up to the open slot, and any additional slots will also be filled by new entries. There's not much that's more satisfying than being killed by an unnamed orc, watching him get promoted up to the rank of Captain, and then coming back so you can hunt him down across half of Mordor, just to make a point.

Of course death is not the only way to handle an Army. Part way through the game Talion will get access to the Brand and Dominate abilities. Branded opponents won't attack Talion in combat. Dominated opponents will fight with him, this includes Captains and even Warchiefs. Piece by piece its possible for Talion to turn the entire enemy hierarchy into his own personal army.