![]() When you’re not battering orcs, you’re sprinting through the level, hitting buttons in time with your leaps to pick up speed. This helps you avoid combat for the most part, but does nothing to offer respite. To compensate for the increase in enemies, Talion’s traversal abilities have also been enhanced, letting you race across the landscape at breakneck speed. The freeform hacking and countering works well for smaller fights, but having a crucial finisher mistargeted as you’re swarmed by orcs can cause lot of unnecessary aggravation. It isn’t helped by the often messy combat. Isolated, each interaction is a fantastic bit of game design, but the constant onslaught quickly becomes exhausting. These surprises give those experienced with the previous title a chance to say wait, they can do that?, but as three more ambushes came within the space of half an hour, surprise rapidly gave way to frustration. These interactions are no doubt meant to be a great moment for players, and later in the game they certainly can be. Not the finest start to learning the game’s basic mechanics. Scattering poisonous bombs which downed us in an instant. Within seconds we were accosted by a captain over ten levels higher than our rank, who berated our amateur efforts before offering an education. Eager to test the feature, we complied - much to our folly. Not 30 minutes in, we’d just killed a group of unsuspecting orcs and noticed a prompt to poison a nearby barrel. The Nemesis system was Shadow of Mordor’s crème de la crème, but the tight streets of Minas Ithil are so crammed that you’ll struggle to run ten seconds without meeting a new captain, and that’s not to mention the countless other ways they can pop up to face you. Stray ever so slightly from the tutorial quests, and you’ll also run into an orc captain and the notorious Nemesis system - though the opening does little credit to the superb mechanic. A crowded place, you’ll struggle to find a single street that isn’t packed with orcs waiting to be sliced and diced. Shadow of War begins in Minas Ithil, a densely packed city at the heart of a war between Sauron and the people of Gondor. It’s just a shame that the opening highlights the worst aspects that carry on throughout. It honestly feels like the developers didn’t know when to stop adding things. Every inch is filled to the brim with ideas, unexpected scenarios and, well, stuff. ![]() Shadow of War is and extremely generous game. Okay, perhaps we’re not being entirely fair. The food is great, but could you just get a moment's peace to enjoy it, please? The table is filled to the brim with succulent dishes, but each time you try to enjoy one, an aggressive waiter insists you try his dish too, forcefully piling its contents onto your plate. Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor feels like attending an unusual banquet. ![]()
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