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

The first half of this game is enjoyable, its challenging and sometimes down right sadistic in its randomness, but there's a joy in that challenge. One time I was sneaking into the enemy camp to assassinate an enemy Captain, stupidly I didn't do proper reconnaissance before entering the camp; if I had then I probably would've waited until my target wasn't surrounded by four other Captains.

What the guy in red doesnt know is that all the guys in blue arent his men anymore.

The randomness can work in your favor though, on a separate occasion I was attacking an enemy camp that was alongside another. Mid-fight my screen went into slow-motion as the camera turned towards the camp I wasn't in and informed me of a captain's death. It turned out that some orc's caragors, basically giant wolves, got loose and ripped through their master's camps. Thanks for saving me the trouble, caragors!

The second half is where things get down-right fun. The second half is where Brand and Dominate come into play. Have any enemy captain in a keep? Why not sneak into that keep and one-by-one Brand every single guard except for the captain, then when you're ready hit the Dominant key and watch as the entire keep turns on their former leader.

Combat, as I said, is a bit of a toned down version of Devil May Cry. The focus is on hit streaks-- chaining one hit or block after another, after another to get more and more powerful damage in-- but thankfully that's where it stops. There's no hard to do combos (no pressing Y-Y-X-X-B-B-Right Trigger in 1.5 seconds). If Talion can score a high enough hit combo he gets access to one of a few finishers: Execution: a massively damaging attack that will kill any non-Captain, Combat Brand: allowing Talion is gain an ally in the middle of combat, Wraith Blast: an ability that deals damage to everyone around Talion as well as knocking them back, and finally Fire Arrow: an explosive shot from his bow. The combat might be too simple for players, but I think that it's as complicated as it needed to be for this game specifically-- not too hard, not too easy, it found its own balance.

Two Parts Of A Whole

The Verdict ( 8 / 10 )

Should you buy this game? Yes, unless you are a Linux-only AMD. Luckily, this game is on sale this weekend for half off, so if you do decide to pick it up: pick it up now rather than later.

The story might jump in a bit too quickly but it finds its pacing soon after. The combat is great, the exploration is very nice, and the fact that the world keeps moving around you, and can change in ways that you didn't make it to, makes the world feels so much more alive.

I will say: this game is probably the most graphically demanding game that I have played on my desktop. The graphics options below, on an R9 290 are giving me an FPS minimum of 51, with an average of 78, in Benchmark mode-- and it is beautiful.

I'm looking forward to eventually playing through the DLC that the game gives you. One DLC covers the story of your wraith companion thousands of years prior to the game, the other is the story of a dwarf hunter who plots against the Beast Masters of Sauron's army in the kingdom of Nurn, near Mordor.