The more I play Shadow of Mordor, the more I appreciate it.
It quickly surpassed the generic sandbox of Assassins Creed.
The feeling of the world being alive pushed it past Red Faction: Guerrilla and now, in
my books, it's threatening GTA 5 for the title of 'BEST SANDBOX THIRD PERSON GAME EVARRRR'.
Don't get me wrong.
GTA 5 is the ultimate party game.
I don't think there's anything that could rival it for comedy potential or ludicrous
killing sprees.
And let's face it, they're only similar in that they're third-person and sandboxy.
But I've fallen in love with Shadow of Mordor's gameplay.
It doesn't make sense.
It's ridiculous and it took me far too long to learn.
But once I did, I didn't care that I played as a dead ranger possessed by a spirit guy
who can climb invisible towers and make orcs nice.
Because it's fun.
And it's hard to explain this game's appeal to people- particularly fans of Lord of the
Rings.
You roam a world swarming with 3 tiers of orcs.
You have the normal, nameless cannon fodder who are everywhere and in large numbers.
But load up this screen and you can see the upper ranks of Sauron's army.
These down here are orc bosses, who roam the world like normal folk but have a much larger
health bar and randomly generated strengths and weaknesses.
You'll encounter one or two of these in each enemy strong-hold and are the ones to target
since they'll make your life difficult.
If you kill them then they may return later with a few more scars and an introduction
where they show off their memory of your previous encounter with them.
And if they kill you, they get promoted and become tougher to beat in your next encounter.
Most of my memories with Shadow of Mordor have been against this middle-rank of orcs.
Some have amusing personalities.
You'll find some who endlessly sing, and others who terrifyingly hunt you down at the most
inopportune of times.
The system isn't THAT complicated, but it's convincing.
A bit later on in the game, you encounter the mega captain uber orcs, who are similar
to the normal bosses but only come out of hiding should you complete an objective that
generally requires killing lots of orcs.
This takes some time, which is just as well since there are only 5 of them at any one
time in each of the two realms of Middle Earth.
But when I started this game, I didn't care about all this.
In fact, my first impressions weren't positive.
I saw it as a small and generic world where I fought alone against endlessly spawning
enemies.
I saw it as a missed opportunity since it bore little in common with the Middle Earth
that I knew and loved.
Combat had that frustrating feeling where you take the time to set up the perfect assassination
of a boss orc, but miss your chance, get seen and are then punished by endless hoards of
orcs swarming your position.
Worse still, another 'boss orc' might join the fight, making it next to impossible to
win early on in the game.
At one point I was up against two bosses at once; one who endlessly regenerated health
and another with a metal shield and would only let me hit him once at a time.
I had no idea what to do since targeting one would let the other attack me.
When I first started the game I had a lot of memories like this, where I was close to
giving up because I couldn't see a way to progress.
And if any of you are in the same situation: don't worry.
Try to ambush them when they're on their own, or simply carry on with the storyline.
But remember their names.
One day, ONE DAY, you'll show them who's boss.
Perhaps make them your bitch, just to be sure.
And then shank them.
Repeatedly.
It doesn't sound feasible now but just you wait.
For this game has this brilliant sense of progression.
By the end of the campaign you're a raging bad-ass!
Middle Earth becomes your playground and it feels as though you're a smurf in a game full
of silvers as you toy with orc Captains as though they're lowly mudcrabs.
And yet the brilliant thing is, you don't feel that your character has become more powerful,
but that you yourself have become a pro at the game, able to take on anything and everything.
It's an amazing feeling.
I even had to start the game again just to see if this was the case.
And within 5 minutes I got destroyed by an orc captain who endlessly summoned legions
of orcs to help him.
I had to run away and lick my wounds.
So it turns out that your upgrades DO help.
You get finishing moves, more health, more arrows and so on, but the majority of what
matters is your ability to judge the situation.
It becomes second nature to jump between stealth and all-out sword play.
You learn to forecast how the battles will play out, allowing you to target the most
dangerous enemies first.
Even after about 40 hours of gameplay I'm still mastering the combat, discovering small
advantages by playing in a particular way, like luring enemies away from the pack so
that I have time to execute them before returning to the fray.
It's not just a brainless button-mashing massacre...
though there is that as well.
And then, half way through, the game tips EVERYTHING on its head and becomes a billion
times more fun.
It lets you make orcs nice and friendly!
Try justifying that gameplay mechanic to people who haven't played the game.
And yet, once again, I don't care if it doesn't make sense because it's one of the most enjoyable
features in any game, ever.
You can convert normal orcs at any time, but for more powerful ones you have to get them
down to low health first.
Once under your spell they'll fight for you, no strings attached.
But more excitingly, you can command the more powerful orcs to do awesome things like attack
other high-ranking enemies.
You can even get several middling ranked orcs to attempt to overthrow one of those uber
mega boss orcs that I mentioned earlier.
It gives the game a political side with more depth and importance than the Total War series
has!
Your reputation spreads.
You overhear orcs spreading rumours about your powers, or lying about how they've previously
engaged you in combat.
As you progress through the game you'll come across characters that you've previously converted,
still under your spell.
It's at times like these that the game's most rewarding.
I felt like a virus, slowly taking over the whole of Middle Earth.
Suddenly, the game isn't lonely any more.
I mean, sure, your friends are evil smelly orcs, but they're FRIENDLY!
And I feel sad when they die.
As time passes, some will inevitably lose power struggles with evil orcs, yes, but for
the most part your hold on Middle Earth only grows stronger as you evolve into a world-eating
mega bad ass Aragorn.
I even played after completing the main campaign!
This is almost unheard of for me.
A bit like with Grand Theft Auto, I enjoyed getting into trouble just for the sake of
it.
To see if I could win one more fight, or convert another orc captain.
I normally look at those tacked-on sub-missions and think 'screw that!', but with Shadow of
Mordor I don't care since it's an excuse to play the game some more.
I even set myself additional goals, like making every powerful orc friendly, or staging fights
between orcs and powerful caragor beasts, which are always a terrifying foe to fight
in close combat.
There are almost TOO many things to do.
I don't think I bothered touching my throwing knives or the overpowered 'push' feature.
Some moves become obsolete as you find other more powerful and efficient ways of killing
or converting enemies.
The world would fail safety inspections in an instant, since they're full of hives to
shoot, grog to poison, cages to unlock and barrels to blow up.
There's always something near-by to fire an arrow at to help tip the scales in your favour.
It made me feel so resourceful and smart, even if it didn't actually help me.
You get the idea.
The game's great.
Shadow of Mordor feels like a living, breathing world complete with foodchain.
Sure, it's an endless power struggle between randomly generated enemies.
But you'll be too caught up in the moment to care.
The beauty of the game isn't that it tries to give your actions meaning.
It's that YOU end up doing this.
You can decide which quests and objectives you care about and you're free to chase them
for as long as you want to.
To survive that next battle, beat that next quest or orc captain.
The game is a beautifully decorated Lord of the Rings set and you're the lead character.
It doesn't matter that it's staged since you'll be too engrossed in the action to care.