Once in a blue moon I decide to pick up some older games that I haven't gotten around to trying out yet for various reasons. Either I didn't quite find them appealing at the time of release or I was curious but didn't want to spend too much money on them. Whatever the reasons are, I have a tendency to sooner or later give them a shot just to either see if I was right or wrong with my assumptions. This practice may sound crazy, but it has given me a pretty decent track record of knowing what games will actually appeal to me.

So for this round of games I just got around to playing we have the futuristic world of Killzone: Shadow Fall, the gritty world of Shadow of Mordor and the pretty lycan hunter The Order 1886. Read on for my hot takes on these games my expectations may or may not prove me right. Some spoilers perhaps, also I haven't actually finished any of these yet.

Killzone: Shadow Fall

Imagine if someone killed your father in cold blood, how would you react? Sad or angry? Maybe act crazy and scream and shout? Well, in Killzone kids apparently don't give a shit. They respond with some overly self reflective question of their future. It was as though your dad couldn't be less important to you other than as a source of food and housing. The game doesn't start off particularly well, in fact I audibly laughed at this specific scene. I didn't expect the story in the game to blow me away, but it was as if they weren't even trying with this one. I mean, even the justification for the entire plot is ridiculous. You wipe out your enemy's home planet and decide to invite them to stay on yours. Did I mention you let them bring weapons? And forcefully seize neighborhoods? And suddenly you play cold war as though it's a futuristic Berlin. Who thought this was all a good idea? Didn't anyone in the writing room go "hey, you know, this makes absolutely no sense at all from any perspective".

Playing Killzone has always been hit or miss. There's something to the gun play in these games that never quite sit well with me. It feels like they're trying to be Call of Duty fast but at the same time have some weight to it making everything feel slightly like playing COD when you have had a few beers and aiming just isn't where it should be anymore. I did however quite enjoy the drone that can help you out in some sticky situations with the tools available, it became sort of a flying set of magic skills.

I suppose in the end I bought the game mostly because I am a sucker for pretty futuristic cities in entertainment. And for a few brief moments I did enjoy some nice skylines and architecture in general. But when push came to shove I decided to end my stay in the world early as it wasn't the shooter I wanted to play, the story was garbage and looking at nice digital houses only get you so far.

Verdict: Didn't need to buy it. Should have trusted instinct.

Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor

Winner of Giant Bomb's own Game of the Year 2014 and on many lists that year. Introduced the much lauded nemesis system and apparently played like gold. My initial reaction back then was that it looked like a bland Lord of the Rings version of Assassin's Creed. While what I read of the nemesis system piqued my curiosity, it never persuaded me to give the game a chance.

First time playing the game I was surprised to find that the graphical style of the human characters felt a lot more cartoony than videos made them out to be, visually speaking. I know cartoony gives a really weird image in ones mind but look at it like this; take a game that aspires to look real and take a few steps towards World of Warcraft. Ironically, I never felt like the enemy seemed to be. In some way I kind of feel like they put more effort into making detailed looking orcs than they did their human characters who feels a lot more generic in contrast. Even the main character feel like he's some random dude in Middle-Earth cosplaying Aragorn.

The world itself still looks really weirdly bland from my inital impression. It feels like you're just running in circles in mud. And I feel like I have read you get to a different area at some point that isn't as muddy and dull looking but I am not entirely sure I want to do this thing I'm doing for that long. The story isn't particularly interesting, the world is a real drag for most of the time to look at and everything feels really constructed and intentional as opposed to feeling like landmass that should be this way.

I will admit though that the combat is really satisfying and fluid. Strike, parry and executions can all lead to some really spectacular moments and I actually appreciate that the enemy doesn't care that you're doing some weird mind-meld with an enemy and actually hits you out of it if you're not paying attention.

But for as fun as the combat is, I actually haven't really seen the fruits of the nemesis system. In fact I would say I don't quite get it outside of the fact that if I die to a captain he can level up and rank up. How that benefits me is completely beyond me. Also, when you kill off a ton of the captains it feels like the entire system breaks down. Also, captains are linked to certain war-chiefs at times but I have no clue why. Maybe I have missed something, but at the same time the game tried to introduce me to "new" features at some point when I had already done that for at least an hour. So I am not so sure the game explains itself all that well.

Verdict: More fun playing than expected. Most of the things I didn't like before playing still holds true though. Nemesis system is a mystery to me. Could have lived without it, but having some fun with it.

The Order 1886

This was one of those games that seemed like a good time to me but it wasn't received all that highly and was said to be pretty short. That being the case I never quite felt like paying full price for it. So I waited for a sale. The game feels like a basic cover based shooter with some quick time events thrown in. Playing it is generally just straight forward with not much in the vein of challenge, except a few places where it feels like the game is setting out to give you a bad time and your AI buddy doesn't help at all. General gun play feels solid though and some of the weaponry is quite fun to wield.

In some way the game feels like it is pulling in two different directions. One is more visual and cinematic and the other leans heavy on classic cover based action. And it seems like the two don't quite want to be there with the other, making it a little bit of a struggle. But it never really turned somewhere I wasn't comfortable with.

But man is the game pretty. I had some moments of looking at buildings where I was actually in some level of awe. The game having a pretty robust photo mode is quite welcomed. Contrary to a lot of other photo modes though, this gives you a free camera that isn't joined at the hip of your character, something that always bugs me in most other games with photo modes.

I realize talking about photo mode seems like an odd thing to focus on, but it was something that I actually had fun with as I find the whole idea of in game photography interesting after seeing some people focus a lot on that. On some level it's a fancier way of saying you took a screen shot, but there's some artistic value there to be sure. But I digress.

Story wise the game isn't quite firing on all cylinders, but nothing is really ruining my experience and I am curious to see where it ends. The world they built is interesting on its own, even if the characters you are spending your time with feels a bit like archetypes than fully fleshed out characters, however fancy their facial hairs might be.

Verdict: Glad I bought it. But I can certainly see the criticisms the game has gotten.

Closing thoughts

When it comes down to it, I am still actually really surprised Shadow of Mordor got as high praise as it did. For as competent as the game is at certain things, the overall package is opposite the concept of "greater than the sum of its parts". Mordor sort of becomes less than the sum of itself. In some ways though, the art style of that game and its world probably rubs me the wrong way more than it does other people. I'll give it a few more story missions and see if anything picks up on the story end, otherwise it will probably have to move aside once Mafia III comes around.

It's a little bit ironic, also, that I spend time talking about photo mode in games and I don't take the time to fix a set of screenshots by myself instead of searching the site for ones to use. I even took the time to set up a way to get them out of there not to long ago either. Ah well, next time!