Shadow of Mordor: some fresh meat on some very stale bread
Shadow of Mordor is an interesting game to dissect. While it borrows many mechanics from other games--Arkham games fighting system, Assassin Creeds traversal-- it offers one of the most innovative mechanics seen in quite some time, in the Nemesis System. All of this is wrapped up in a terribly un-engaging, cliche of a video game story.
You play as the ranger Tallion, within the first 5 minutes of the game the catalyst of the story happens, and this is expected to fuel you with motivation for the next 15+ hours of game. If I were to boil the story down it would disappear, as the developers have already boiled the story as far down as it could be: revenge. You must gain revenge against Sauron because his minions did some bad shit to you--including killing you. There are some movements in the third act to try and add some extra motivation to your blood fueled rampage, but they are too late and to uninspired to really hold any weight for the player. One of the games biggest story issues is how they introduce characters and what they do with them. The game seems to add a new character every quarter of the way through and fades an old one out, but there is never really any pay off with any of them. They introduce some new characters in the second map and at about 3/4 mark allude to one of them being a love interest but by this point the player doesn't have enough invested in this character to believe it or care. They give us characters and they take them away but never in a meaningful way.
Luckily the combat is here to pull some of the dead weight of the story. While the combat is essentially the button timing of the Arkham games, it's done perfectly and with brutal animations to go with it. You gain skill points as you move through the story missions, and kill more powerful Uruks. By the end of the game I was just a few skills short of maxing my character out--and I completed every side quest offered. There are also runes you gather from defeated foes that you can augment onto your weapons to increase their stats, or give them special abilities. Some people complained that at the beginning of the game they felt under powered and by the end of the game they felt over powered. I never had this feeling at the beginning. The combat scenarios never gave me much trouble and towards the end of the game I was breezing through the battles.
Other than story missions there are a great many of side missions and collectables to go after. There are 3 types of side missions, each one corresponding with one of your weapons: bow, dagger, sword. These missions start to get very repetitive and do not pose much of a challenge until you get into the second map. All of the collectables are marked on your maps so they aren't difficult to find and most can be gotten while on your way to other more substantial things.
The environment is nothing special to look at. The first map is 50 shades of brown and it all just blurs together. I guess Mordor isn't supposed to be appealing to look at, but this Mordor isn't anything but boring. Once you get to the second map you get exposed to a lot more colors--like green! This is a nice change, but it doesn't do enough to really wow you. The cutscenes look great and the Uruks look amazing and always have something unique to say before going into battle. The frame rate did drop down multiple times, on the PS4, while fighting in a huge crowd of uruks, but nothing game breaking, and the rest of the time it ran just fine.
I would be remiss to not talk about the Nemesis System. This is obviously the shinning star of this game and it's most interesting aspect. On the surface it just looks like a the ranks of the enemies standing in your way. But once you look deeper you realize it's a chess board for you to maneuver through. Each captain has a scenario on the map you can participate in once you discover their location. These scenarios will give you skill points and help you weaken Sauron's army. You can approach these scenarios in many ways but the smartest thing to do would be collect intel on the captain and find out his strengths and weaknesses before charging in. Once defeated that captain will fall out of the ranks and his spot is open for replacement. Later in the game you will be able to turn captains onto your side and use this to your advantage. You may have them infiltrate a war chief's inner circle so they can help you once you fight that war chief. Or maybe send them to battle against another captain. There are a multitude of options through this system. When the tables turn and you get killed by a captain that captain will increase in power and move up the ranks making him harder to kill. While it is still a little rough around the edges, this system is a dynamic and interesting mechanic that will surely be iterated upon many times in the future.
Shadow of Mordor is a game full of stale ideas and fresh ideas. It is full of visceral combat and an interesting new mechanic, while also having an atrocious story and bland environments. These negatives hold it back from the greatness it could achieve, but it is a fun and interesting ride either way and definitely worth a look.
