Friday, September 22, 2017

Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor - 20/20 hours

If Shadow of Mordor were a generic fantasy game, its plot would be perfectly serviceable. However, it's so at odds, thematically, with The Lord of the Rings that it feels like it's set in a different universe.

The backstory to the game is a little complicated (there's this ranger guy who, due to unfortunate legal circumstances, had to take his family to the border of Mordor, where they were killed as part of a blood sacrifice, and as he lay dying of his own sacrifice wound, he met up with the wraith of an ancient elf who somehow spiritually bonded with him and keeps bringing him back from the dead), but the plot is pretty simple - get revenge on the high-ranking officers in Sauron's army for all the bad shit they did, both to the ranger Talion, and in the past, generally.

However, the way they go about this is through a campaign of terror that leads to them wielding the weapons of the enemy in an effort to bring him down, which is kind of the opposite of what The Lord of the Rings said they should do. I suppose it's possible that this will all go horribly sideways in the last two story missions and we'll learn that the plan was flawed from the start, but the game is going to get a sequel soon, and so . . .

Although, I actually think the most fundamental flaw in the game's plot is that it's a revenge story. Talion's wife and son were killed, as were the wraith's, all those thousands of years ago. And while that kind of loss is understandably very motivating, it kind of stifles any sort of robust characterization. The pain of losing a loved one is something everyone can relate too, so having it as the driving force behind your main character says basically nothing about them. At the very least, it would be nice if the grizzled male main character lost a friend, or a father, or a cheerful next-door neighbor as the inciting incident for their vigilantism. Those sorts of relationships are uncommon enough in revenge fiction that they'd almost have to be rooted in specificity by default.

Even with the bland protagonist, I'm tempted to keep playing Shadow of Mordor, just to see how it ends, but I think I'll have to pass for now. The mission I'm currently on involves brainwashing the five orc warchiefs in order to raise an army to attack Sauron's loyalists. And it's nice that it is presented as a freeform exercise in tinkering with the Nemesis system, but the flipside of that is that it requires a lot of effort to plan and execute the dozen or so assassinations/stronghold invasions (when I'm in control, there's not much of a difference) that are required to climb the ranks. It could easily be another 5-10 hours before I even touch another main story mission.

I'm definitely coming back, though. I enjoyed how dynamic the open world felt, and while I could do without the stealth, having it as an option did make me feel like I was making a significant choice in how to approach the game. And it may not have been the Tolkien nerdfest I was hoping for, it was clearly made with a love for, if not especially great understanding of, the source material.

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