Why Shadow of Mordor was one of the Best Games of 2014

2014 was a great year for the video game industry. It saw amazing AAA releases such as Grand Theft Auto V, Dark Souls II, Destiny, Dragon Age Inquisition, and Super Smash Bros. (Wii U). But there was one game that stood out in particular for me, and that was Shadow of Mordor. When Shadow of Mordor was announced, a lot of people, including myself, were skeptical of its concept. It looked like just another LoTR game. But after playing it, most people would agree that this is not the case. There are a number of features in the game that make it a “good” game, but the one feature that stands out is the Nemesis System. We’ll talk about that in a second, but first, let’s look at some of the other core game mechanics and style.

There’s nothing inherently exceptional about Shadow of Mordor’s art direction, but it’s a good looking game. The animations are smooth, and the world, especially the second half of the game, really pops. Shadow of Mordor borrows some of its game mechanics from other games, namely the combat from the Batman Arkham series, and the parkour style movement from the Assassin’s Creed series. Combat feels good. It is difficult to get the timing down early in the game, but once mastered, it makes the player feel like a badass. The movement from area to area is also fun, and is much faster than that of the Assassin’s Creed games. Lastly, there is an RPG progression element. The game starts out rather difficult. As stated earlier, the combat takes some time to master, but the player is also weak. It’s difficult to take on too many uruk (the game’s enemies, similar to orcs) at the same time. And the captains and warchiefs (similar to bosses, part of the nemesis system which we will get into shortly) feel impossible. But, as the player progresses, these encounters get easier and easier leading to a real sense of accomplishment.

Image from Wired: http://www.wired.com/2014/09/shadow-of-mordor/

That fact that the player feels weak in the beginning is also part of another mechanic. Each ranked uruk enemy has certain strengths and weakness that the player can see. Being so weak, the player needs to step back and assess his or her plan of attack. If the player just charges into battle, often he or she will become surrounded and will either die, or need to retreat. The game forces the player to think and has faith that the player is smart enough to figure some things out, and that’s not something many games do these days.

The story in Shadow of Mordor is fantastic. It delves into the realm of how the rings of Sauron were created, and is different than that of the main books/movies. There are artifacts hidden around the world, and the game encourages the player to find them. They do a superb job of universe building and expanding on what the player already knows about Tolkien’s tale.

All of the things mentioned above make Shadow of Mordor a good game. The feature, though, that separates it from the rest, and makes it truly unique is the Nemesis System. At its heart, the Nemesis System is there to make the game world feel “alive.” As the player is doing his or her thing in the game, the bad guys are doing other things as well. They are recruiting new uruk to join the ranks, or fighting each other for supremacy among Sauron’s army. When the player dies, the uruk that kills him gets a promotion, new abilities, and becomes more powerful. This makes every death important, and makes the player really think on what he or she should be doing at any given moment. If the player fails, it stifles the progress of the game. Also, at a certain point in the game, the player can “brand” enemies, making them obey him or her. Then the player can take out enemies of higher rank than this new ally, and have the ally move up the ranks. It really changes how the game is played when the player has a few allies on his side when going up against a warcheif (the highest ranked, and most powerful enemies in the game).

Image from NewsaRama: http://www.newsarama.com/22638-shadow-of-mordors-influence-how-nemesis-system-can-improve-batman-star-wars-assassin-s-creed.html

This system is very unique. No other game has had anything even remotely similar to this, and it makes Shadow of Mordor feel like a persistent world. If the player continues along the main storyline, ignoring the other captains, they only get more powerful, and this will be problem later on. The Nemesis System adds time to the game that doesn’t feel like a grind. So many other games are guilty of artificially adding content to their game by making the player grind for items, or backtrack through levels to complete meaningless tasks, and this is definitely not the way to go. The Nemesis System is an alternative route, and it’s very rewarding and fun. Other games should take note, and implement similar mechanics in the future.

Shadow of Mordor was one of the most surprising games released in 2014, at least for me. I didn’t think too much of it when announced, but was absolutely blown away when I played it. The gameplay is fun, the story is well written, and the Nemesis System is by far one of the greatest new mechanics seen in a game for a long time. The game is definitely one of the best in recent memory, and should be considered one of the first “true” next gen games for this generation.

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3 Responses to Why Shadow of Mordor was one of the Best Games of 2014

  1. mdr5325 says:

    great post!

    I would have to agree with you about this game being one of my favorites of the year. Like you said, I think my favorite part about this game would be how dynamic the rankings of the captains and such was. Not only could you inadvertently boost the powers of the captains you were trying to subdue with poor planning, it was just as easy to get on a friends game while they were gone and make the game 10x harder for them.

    A lot of my friends enjoyed the mechanics of this game a lot, seeing as how they were so similar to other games, specifically assassins creed, and there wasn’t a huge learning curve before you could really get out there and start doing missions. Personally, I did not really enjoy the fighting mechanics in this game. The way you were able to parry an attack and chain kill numerous enemies was just a little bit to similar to the way you could do the exact same thing in assassins creed and I just didn’t think it was different enough to enjoy doing. Overall I thought it was a great game though. The diversity of enemies, attack styles, and stories were enough to keep my attention.

  2. Sailaubekov says:

    As the author of the post below, I have a huge interest to the Lord of the Rings and everything related to it. You pointed out the Nemesis System as the most outstanding element of the game. I totally agree with you because the idea behind the Nemesis System is really cool and undoubtedly is quite unique. At least I have never heard of anything similar in other games. But I would want to say that the storyline in the Shadow of Mordor is also of the great significance and it is one of the key reasons of this game’s success. The storyline of the game is different than what used to see. Every game from the Lord of the Rings series that I played had stories similar to the that of the Tolkien’s books. I could easily predict what would happen during playing those games. Guys from the Monolith Productions decided to develop something new from the Tolkien’s stories and this is great. I don’t yet know if the storyline is one the most interesting or entertaining, but the idea behind this storyline definitely caught my attention.
    A few words about the graphics and gameplay of the game. In my opinion, there is nothing outstanding in the graphics. I am not saying it is bad, it’s nice and it doesn’t have any drawbacks, but it doesn’t have anything catching as well. Regarding the gameplay, it looks so much similar to that of Assassin’s Creed which is good in my opinion. The review is very informative and detailed. Nice job! I will add Shadow of Mordor to my to-do list.

  3. Paul Pham says:

    I cannot believe I have never heard of this game, I am big fan of the Lord of the Rings games because of the movies, which entailed me to get the LoTR: The Two Towers and The Return of The King for the ps2. I thought that your statement was pretty bold, which made me stop and read your blog. You must have had a good experience with game because I was blown away with your review. After reading it, I was very intrigued about the game so like most people, I did some research on the game. After watching some gameplay videos, I was so surprise about the graphics, the cut scenes were done beautifully and were not like your typical cuts scenes where you would want to just skip it and continue you playing the game. The fighting aspect was also done very nicely, and I thought the fighting aspects were very fluid. It kind of reminded of the Assassin Creed series fighting style more then the Batman Arkham series fighting style. But never the less, you just got yourself a new Shadow of Mordor play. Nice review.

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