Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor and War. My thoughts

The following are my thoughts of Middle Earth Shadow of Mordor and its sequel. It assumes you’re familiar with the games. I won't be as formal and as analytical as I was with my AC2 post.

I’ve recently finished Shadow of War, after finishing Red Dead Redemption 2. My short summary of these games is that SOW is really good, its Nemesis System carries it far and makes it worth experiencing. It’s let down by being so limited in its story. And War makes SOM redundant. It feels that Monolith put the Lion’s share of resources into the Nemesis System, for better and worse.



Lets start with the story. In both the best and worst ways, it feels that the lion’s share of development went to the Nemesis System, because it feels the story got the leftovers.

With Regards to SOM, I always felt the premise and set up was really well done. I bought into Talion's struggle and the precence of Celebrimbor. I was sold on this when I saw that cutscene where Talion was shocked at how the slaves were treated while Celebrimbor encouraging him to ignore it and focus on his mission. Seeing this difference between the heroes would have been cool. I recall Prince of Persia The Two Thrones did a similar thing and it was great. The problem here is that SOM doesn’t do much with its story. It feels more like an excuse to dabble in the nemesis system until the final missions. Only Ratbag’s missions broke the monotony. It’s a shame given the premise and Tolkien’s universe. It's telling that it takes until SOW for someone to bring up that how Talion is feeling after dying.

Speaking of which, I know Monolith takes a lot of liberties with the source material. Frankly, I don’t mind. Games are a medium that what works for the gameplay may not often fit 100% with the source material so tweaks need to be made. I'm cool if a game based on something needs to tweak a lot to work. Case in point, Tolkien wasn't fond of brutality, misuse of power, and the way Shelob was used. Yet, SOM couldn't exist without opposing these. 

Besides, I've seen comic books and their adaptations play loose and fast with continuity and put their own spin on things. If SOM wants to be like an alternate timeline to the Hobbit/LOTR like how the Arkham Games were to the comics, I'm fine with that. If anything, I'd argue that's often the best course of action for games like this. They can pick and choose what bits of the world they want and make their own story without being restricted by the Canon. 

Both SOM and SOW are all over the place in this regard but I feel they did make something that feels unique while playing reasonably well with what's established.

Now onto SOW.

For what it's worth, the game attempts to step up in this regard. It has multiple threads all while the main quest of building up an army to take down Sauron keeps you occupied.

Let's talk our main characters. Firstly, Talion and Celebrimbor have lot more lines that explore their reletionships and views. I loved the Gondorian Artifacts because the 2 would talk about it (Celebrimbor's personality and outlook are interesting). I loved dying as they'd talk about it, the one-liners from Talion when he's fighting an overlord or his "I miss Celebrimbor line". The problem is that the format is rarely more than 1 sentence each outside of main missions.  It's a shame given the perspectives and outlooks of these characters. I'd love a way to get these 2 to talk and react more. Like a button from Prince of Persia 08 or the radio from MGSV. As it currently stands, it's a missed opportunity. What's more is this could have been used to great effect to haunt players once Act 3 starts (Worked for RDR2). Keeping it so minimal hurts when characters do interact as it limits the quality of the story. 

Let's move onto Act 1. I feel this is pretty good. It's different from SOM even for returning players by giving our vulnerable duo with a human rather than Orc locale to fight in. The various characters of Idril ,  Baranor, Shelob and Eladrial are introduced,  future threads are forshadowed , the gameplay is shown, the set pieces are interesting. It's pretty good.

Act 2 splits so I'll talk about each thread on its own. Starting with Idril. I haven't looked much at others opinions, but I wouldn't be surprised if this ends up being disliked. Not a lot happens on her path aside from rescuing trapped Gondorians and her deciding to stay in Mordor with Baranor who is concerned for. I kinda get what they were going for with her looking to make up for her father's cowardice but it feels bland and uninteresting. So if I could rewrite it to be better, here's what I would do. Firstly, Idril is someone training to be fighter but typically restricted to do so by Castamir. So she's using soldiers loyal to her to help defend specific things in Mines Ithil. She and Talion work together over their common goals. What the game already does can stay. After the city falls, Baranor takes Talion to a Lair where some surviving Gondorians have taken refuge. We learn that Idril has changed as a result. She's burdened with guilt for being used to sacrifice Minas Ithil so she's started an underground movement to help the remaining people in Mordor escape even if it puts her in danger. Talion can be asked to use his powers to recruit Orcs that are more friendly to assist with this effort. Throughout this, we see how battle hardened Idril has gotten and how worried Baranor is. The final mission ends with a more mature Idril sacrificing herself to save people and Talion and encourages him to not get too wrapped up in killing no matter how necessary it is.

I feel my outline is a better fit because it has its own progression and climax that feels built up to, gives her an arc and ties into Talion's main quest which ends up supporting the new future Shelob envisioned instead of being straightforward and just rescuing soldiers.

Carnan's story is fine. The setpieces, fights and Zog's resurrection sequences are chilling and intense. Really well done. My only real complaints are the sudden recklessness from Talion at first despite Celebrimbor's warning, how unconnected it feels from the main quest, and the oddity in the end where it's suggested the immortal spirit sacrificed herself yet is still around.

Bruz's works well in teaching and is interesting. Also shows how destructive and evil our heroes can be.

Now let's move onto Act 3. When I first got to this point  I felt the story hadn't really justified Talion and Celebrimbor becoming evil while the gameplay had through how I'd treated the Orcs. The twist of what Shelob did then worked out I guess. But a part of me would have loved the original timeline. I bought the game expecting that to happen. Regardless it was a cool way to cap off the story and actually took me off my guard. 

The Shadow Wars wasn't really fun due to the grinding. Thankfully a patch did make very short (it's one of those rare times where the gameplay matches perfectly with the story and it suffers as a result. Obviously Talion's final decades would have been repetitive and arduous ). I do like this ending for how fitting, tragic and intense it feels. As well as how it ties into LOTR in an interesting way. Looking back, I don't think there was a better way they could have ended the story while still fitting in. Had Talion and Celebrimbor simply failed, it would have been a repeat of the Bright Lord DLC. Had they been delayed or won, it wouldn't have fit with LOTR. It also leaves a door open for a 3rd game. Consider me intrigued. 

I want to talk about Isildur, Minas Morgul and Hammerhand. Obviously, Ithil Fell millennia before this game. I'm fine with that. The game creates an interesting scenario, set piece and association with the town that it uses. It wouldn't even be remotely as engaging if you just started with Morgal already active and told a quick history lesson. As for Isildur, I know Nazgul aren't replaced in Tolkien's lore and they were active millennia before Isildur (and Hammerhand) even entered the scene. But I'd argue the game makes good use of it. It establishes that Nagul work differently in that they can be killed by a few ways and that's how replacements come in (severing the connection of Nazgul to Sauron worked to kill the Witch King in LOTR). Making Isildur a Nazgul has its benefits. Note that Talion's past has never been a point in the ongoing narrative. So suddenly having to develop a new Nazgul that both Talion and the Audience would be in awe off in the span of a few missions is not ideal or impactful. Using Isildur accomplishes that and also creates tension of Talion (and the audience) seeing such a mythical figure be Sauron's puppet. And as a result, Isildur becomes the catalyst to show Talion the truth of the situation when Celebrimbor brainwashes him. Again, it would be hard to do that or be as invested if it were anyone else. As for Hammerhand, he foreshadows this by being someone that Celebrimbor was around and saw what the rings did.

-Gameplay 

Obviously, the main selling point of these games is the Nemesis System. That system that generates many different Orcs and thrives on unscripted interactions between each other and the player. War's version with more Orcs, interactions etc makes SOM look like a demo.

Speaking of SOM, partway through my playthrough I found I got bored Of the system. I'd seen all the ways it could have played out so even new lines of dialogue or different Orcs just felt like window dressing. It wasn't until the Beast master DLC the game surprised me with new scenarios and it did by scripting some interactions. It's kinda funny the game was able to surprise me by getting rid of the one thing that made it unique. SOW obviously got a lot more mileage but there were cracks in the experience. Many of the procedural missions to summon a particular Orc got repetitive after a while. I'd prefer if these was better integrated into the world rather than being these missions. The sieges got repetitive as well due to the same goals every time. I'd love if they were more open-ended as what's there is pretty solid and open already.

I'm not fond of how you have no control in the fight pits. You could make the case for the online fights to keep it balanced, but in solo play, it is kinda frustrating to spend time building up a recruit, sending him in to become a bodyguard/warchief and he gets killed by a skinny twig of an orc causing you to have to repeat the process.

I find the way stealth and combat is done in these games to be interesting as they feed into the Nemesis System quite well.

Stealth is very lenient in the world outside of forts and captains. Letting you kill and interrogate with ease and work upto forts and captains. Letting it feel like a personal hunt at times as you move through the map to take down an enemy that killed you. But there is no real danger or need to stealth unless you're in a fort which may make stealth kinda shallow but it keeps up the pace of navigating the world.

Combat is interesting because of how the Arkham like combat is used. Now this type of combat system isn't technically new. Spider-Man 2, Prince of Persia Warriour Within, and even Assassin's Creed 1 all used many of the pieces of a free form combat system that allowed for quick counters and crowd control with minimal inputs. But Arkham popularized a particular application of it. The goal here isn't survival. That's a given. It's efficiency/style. It's about taking down crowds quickly and effectively while maintaining a high combo and variety. The challenge comes from maintaining that as enemy groups vary in composition with their own unique resistances, requiring the player to juggle how they move, fight and build up their combos to perform special moves. For example, instead of using the beat down move against an armoured target, a player may opt to beat on normal targets around him to build up the ability to perform an instant takedown and use that on the armoured target. 

A limitation of this kind of combat system is its reliance on the presence of fodder enemies during regular fights to function. It can't really work during one on one duels.

For example, consider the first Titan in Arkham Asylum. You fight him in a regular fight one on one. And you can easily strike and jump over his attacks so he can't even touch you. That's the downside. You're too versatile against 1 opponent. That's why many boss fights in the series throw regular thugs at you. It's the only way to add a reasonable challenge to the fight. Otherwise, you'd dodge every charging Titan and Ivy plants with ease. The only times Arkham has had truly great boss fights are by changing the context  (Deathstroke by incorporating the QTE counter based fighting ) or by ignoring the combat system altogether  (Mr. Freeze).

Here's where you can see games inspired by Arkham stumble. The Amazing Spider-Man games, for example, kept the counter and movement systems but didn't have the enemies or scenarios able to vary to allow maintaining a combo to be a challenge.

Here's where we loop this around to SOW. It's cool that they made this work for survival simply because it wasn't the best fit.

Let me explain, you'll find Orcs with immunities to you being able to fight them straight up. So you'll end up attacking grunts to try and build up the ability to perform special moves like executions, explosions etc to damage them. Even if this doesn't work out and you end up dying, it's ok because the Nemesis System kicks in and continues. It depends a fair bit on players dying and the inadequate for fights like this Arkham combat ends up assisting this without feeling too bad. The system also encourages more dirty tactics as well so the commitment to combos isn't required. SOM ends up subverting this later on due to how OP Talion gets so only the flaws remain without the positives. SOW is closer to getting the balance right.

A combat system like AC Odyessy's might be a better fit mechanically (because of how you can deal with multiple enemies) but it may allow players to bypass parts of the Nemesis System by not dying as much.

- Misc

In this section, I usually talk about things that are tangentially related to the games, or don't fit in as well etc. You are free to skip over this as this is more of a bonus that a main part of my article. 

I wish to discuss 2 things here, microtransactions and an Orcs as Slavery article.

About Microtransactions, SOW lets you buy Uruks through Lootcrates. This feature was removed later in an update. You can still get Uruk lootcrates but those are now only in-game. Their mere inclusion got a lot of negative controversy.

Personally, I do not care that much. If a game wants to include this stuff, Let them as long as I am not forced into it or am really pushed into it. If someone else wants to spend money to buy all the Uruks right away, I don't mind. It does feel like they are paying to pay less of the game but that's their choice. If I'm cool with people spending their money on expensive cars, knick-knacks, fashion clothing or any expensive luxury, then I can't complain about people wanting to spend money in a single player game.

As for the other thing, Vice who wrote an article in 2017 titled 

"Orc Slavery Made Me Quit ‘Middle-earth: Shadow of War’"

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/bjve9q/middle-earth-shadow-of-war-orc-slavery-lord-of-the-rings

I have seen various Reddit posts and Forums overreact and go all terrible by the mere mention of this article with vitriol comparable to comment sections of those anti-SJW types on Youtube. And I want to set the record straight because upon reading it, it was hardly apocalyptic. I encourage everyone reading this to actually read this and not just go off the title.

The article actually praises SOW a lot. Quote: "Shadow of War has gone to pains to make the player care about the orcs. The advertising tagline is "Nothing Will Be Forgotten," live action commercials depict orcs lovingly caring for players years after they've stopped playing, and holding grudges for decades."

And raises interesting comparisons to games like X-Com and how one would get attached to soldiers or in this case, Uruks. These are cool things to discuss. This is a game where people can recruit sentient beings with blood brothers they care for and you can torture their minds into insanity worse than death. Now, I love this game, but to see people dismiss this article and be so unwilling to even lower any hostility is absurd. Like, the same forums and Subreddits that talk about how they regretted killing Uruks they got attached to can't see a side where people really regret that. 

Also, Tolkien himself grappled with the nature of Orcs and their morality, so at the very least, don't immediately dismiss stuff like some angry manchild.