Shadow of Mordor… Everyone and their grandmother said this game was the shit of shits back in 2014. So me being a cheap-ass gamer who waits for most things to go down in price, I decided to wait and eventually picked it up in 2015.
Pre-Hype Blues
I kept hearing about how amazing the nemesis system was and why this was the reason I needed to play this game. I kept hearing about how it had amazing combat, how it took the Assassin’s Creed and Batman Arkham series’ schtick and perfected the formula with unprecedented freedom. Oh boy!
So I load up the game, get into a little skirmish and yes the combat is a little Batman-y.
That’s sweet because at the time I had played two of those games and knew how to seriously kick some ass in that framework.
My first outing I see a group of orcs and I’m thinking, “Noice! mother fuckers are bout to get werked.’ So I run over, waving my sword in the air and screaming the void-words of the fallen fathers of Gondor and get fucking taken out, hard. Just so damn hard.
Ok…Let’s do this again. I rinse and repeat my strategy, concentrate on my countering a little more and I get bodied once again. At that point I thought maybe it’s time to do these side quests; I’m obviously not strong enough.
I do some side quests, I start to get my head around the upgrade tree and the games wider systems. But I also start to realise I fucking hate this game.
Fifty Shades of Brown
Everything is fucking shit-brown. I know it is supposed to be super grimdark, look brother I know Morgoth doesn’t like bright colours and flowers and shit, what decent necromage worth his salt does? But man, I felt the horrible boring-ass brown fucking oppression that everyone enslaved in middle earth did. Just browny grey everywhere textures everywhere!
Also the famous Nemesis system just didn’t do it for me. So there are specific enemies in a hierarchical structure.
You can mirk anyone of these dudes whenever you want. This will create a vacuum that is filled by the next mans.
If you get killed by one of these orc-bros they will level up and become harder to kill. They also will remember your ass and have some quippy shit to say when your paths cross again.
I can see why people like the system: it helps build a relationship with your enemies, it’s also a system that can work independently from any story, a plus for all of you hardcore mechanics guys out there.
The thing is, it’s a great system if you give a flying fuck about playing the game. Because I had no fun sneaking, arrowing dudes or the combat in general, I didn’t give a shit which orc killed me or I killed. If they came back dropping super-hot-fire lyrics about how they killed me, it wouldn’t register a single emotion in my cold dead soul. Good for you mate, you killed me, couldn’t give a shit.
Arrowing Dudes In The Face
I am no badman when it comes to games, I have little to no patience for having to repeat the same shit endlessly (unless a game is Super Sayain 57 level badman tings) but I ain’t no bitch I can handle my business.
But I just didn’t like anything in the game enough to keep going, to really learn the combat, to do the stealth stuff. I fucking hated how health worked, I hated the world, the characters, the missions, I just really had nothing for this game.
I can understand why people like it but for me it was just another fucking open world game, with loads of dumb side bullshit I have no fucking interest in doing. The nemesis system meant absolutely nothing for me.
I know there was a framework in which I was supposed to kill dudes, but it made no difference, I was still just killing dudes, war-chief, or normal orc, them being in the system made no difference as to whether I gave a shit or not.
The End of All Things
By all means this is not a bad game. It is a very good mechanically sound game. However, I do think some of the hype surrounding it seems a little misplaced. It does so some new thins, which is very commendable and for those who have the time I am sure it will reward you. I just did not realise how much the game was going to ask of me, and It did not give me enough low level fun to keep coming back, just loads of systems, bullshit side missions and frustration.
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