Monolith has brilliantly captured the grand, epic feel of the films, but the world has a sludgy, muted look that, while appropriate for a place like Mordor, makes for some bleak, uninspiring environments. The sense of scale is impressive, and you can climb to the top of the immense tower that gives the city its name. When you arrive at Minas Ithil you find the streets filled with battle-hungry orcs, siege machines, and Gondorian soldiers defending their home. A new character called Eltariel, an elf chosen by Galadriel to hunt the Nazgûl, would have made for a much more interesting protagonist.Īs the title suggests, war looms large in this sequel. It’s telling that any of the game’s randomly-generated orcs has more personality than this bearded bore. But then, on the battlefield, he gleefully pops heads and elaborately executes people, clearly loving every second of it. The game tries to paint him as a stoic, heroic force for good who’d rather not be fighting this war at all. He's a morose charisma vacuum who spends most of the game bickering with the equally humourless Celebrimbor, his spectral tag team partner. Its only really funny character, an Aussie orc called Brûz the Chopper, is wasted as a walking tutorial.Īnd Talion is one of the least likeable heroes I’ve ever encountered in a game. In comparison, Shadow of War is almost entirely self-serious and in love with its own sense of grandeur. But where’s the warmth? The heart? People love this series because it mixes its grand fantasy with humour, humanity. People solemnly discussing Sauron’s growing power, lamenting the war ahead. It’s a shame about the story, where the writers have focused squarely on the mystical, doomy side of Lord of the Rings. Talion forms an uneasy alliance with the giant spider Shelob, who appears to him as a beautiful woman a pouting goth Galadriel who slinks about in black silk speaking in riddles, but never once gets hopelessly stuck in a bathtub. The game ties into Peter Jackson’s films like this often, and in some clever ways, but equally has no qualms about hammering its own ideas into the established lore. In Shadow of War you get to visit this place before they claimed it as their fortress, back when it was the city of Minas Ithil in Gondor. In Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Frodo, Sam, and Gollum briefly stop at Minas Morgul, home of the Witch-king of Angmar and the Nazgûl. Waging psychological war on orcs like this is often more fun than fighting them. There’s something gratifying about making a scarred, snarling orc called Lûga Skull-Cracker flee in terror because one of his underlings revealed he has a secret fear of morgai flies. But before you wade into combat it’s worth interrogating weak-minded orcs to discover intel about their superiors: things they’re scared of, weapons they’re weak against, and so on. The game’s fun, crunchy combat is in the Arkham mould, with timing-based counters and an ever-increasing pool of moves and powers that increase its complexity. They’re the only characters who seem to be having any fun in this cursed world, and the vast array of positive and negative traits they have make them infinitely interesting and entertaining to fight. Forging bitter feuds with these expressive, unique enemies is the heart of the game, and easily the best thing in it. And if you defeat them, but they manage to escape, they’ll remember and reassure you that this time you won’t be so lucky. So if an orc captain or warchief kills you, they’ll gleefully taunt you about it next time they see you. The lauded nemesis system, first introduced in Shadow of Mordor, is back and expanded.
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