Shadow of Mordor: Should you believe the hype?

Shadow of Mordor has been getting a lot of glowing reviews and a lot of media coverage over the last few days. But is it living up to the hype?

The story so far

SoM story is a simple one. Your entire family is killed by an agent of Sauron’s army: The Black Hand. You manage to somehow survive and are now bound to a wraith who gives you superhuman powers. That’s it. That simple. It’s really nothing interesting and to be quite honest, rather boring. You will never get attached to the characters and you’ll never really care what happens to them. The story is simply there as a backdrop for the amazing nemesis system.

The enemy of my enemy

The nemesis system is probably the best thing to come out of this game. You get to follow the inner workings of Sauron’s army and directly influence what’s going on. Killing an Uruk captain will make another one take his place, with different abilities and weaknesses. The hierarchy also changes often, without any intervention from your part, which makes it interesting to follow what’s going on.

Combat baby

The biggest disappointment is the combat system. It tried very hard to be fun and challenging like the Batman games, but it just ends up being clumsy and ineffective. You always feel like there’s a half-second delay with each command you input, making counters and dodges almost impossible to land short of mashing the button. When you are facing 25-35 Orc and 2-3 captains, it’s impossible to come out on top.

What do?

Shadow of Mordor could have been our favorite game of 2014, but the awkward combat and the uninteresting story ruined the experience for us. It’s a definite rent it before you buy it.