Middle Earth: Shadows of War
Y'know, looking back at my review of Shadows of Mordor, there's really no surprise here. The game plays okay, though the mashing of buttons, quick time counters, and hit streak power moves are all feeling a bit dated. Assassin's Creed Origins moved a little bit away from that, and it feels better in my book. The Nemesis System has evolved ever so slightly, but feels less revolutionary than the first iteration. I saw a handful of orcs come back from the dead repeatedly and it made little impact.
The story was serviceable, but scattered. Shelob (prettied up and a little less spidery) gets a whole lot of focus in the beginning, then largely steps off to the side, leaving Talion and Celembrimbor to intersect with a few other characters. I quite liked the Gondorians (though Idril was entirely too "clean" looking to be going through battle), but they too are only around for perhaps a dozen quests. Most of the play time it going to be spent fighting through/running around orcs to focus on recruiting/killing captains to set up fortress battles. And that... gets kind of old. They actually manage an interesting twist or two with the "ending" and "epilogue" that wrench the story back into rough alignment with LotR canon, though doing so makes for a game ending that felt dissatisfying to me.
With practice and unlocked skills, the game gets easier to the point where I found the hardest encounters were hard primarily because there was too much stuff going on to focus on. Those handful of fights led to some cursing at the screen because they felt cheap: a Nazgul (requiring precise counters) coupled with drakes breathing fire everywhere, a siege fight with a captain immune to most tricks that I could barely target due to all the other things (friend and foe) around, and a few similar situations.
So it wasn't unworthy of a playthrough, and there were some good moments, but again - not a lot of lasting impact from the game.
Mmm. I said I was feeling critical lately. ;)
The story was serviceable, but scattered. Shelob (prettied up and a little less spidery) gets a whole lot of focus in the beginning, then largely steps off to the side, leaving Talion and Celembrimbor to intersect with a few other characters. I quite liked the Gondorians (though Idril was entirely too "clean" looking to be going through battle), but they too are only around for perhaps a dozen quests. Most of the play time it going to be spent fighting through/running around orcs to focus on recruiting/killing captains to set up fortress battles. And that... gets kind of old. They actually manage an interesting twist or two with the "ending" and "epilogue" that wrench the story back into rough alignment with LotR canon, though doing so makes for a game ending that felt dissatisfying to me.
With practice and unlocked skills, the game gets easier to the point where I found the hardest encounters were hard primarily because there was too much stuff going on to focus on. Those handful of fights led to some cursing at the screen because they felt cheap: a Nazgul (requiring precise counters) coupled with drakes breathing fire everywhere, a siege fight with a captain immune to most tricks that I could barely target due to all the other things (friend and foe) around, and a few similar situations.
So it wasn't unworthy of a playthrough, and there were some good moments, but again - not a lot of lasting impact from the game.
Mmm. I said I was feeling critical lately. ;)
Comments
Post a Comment