In the recent months, several hyped-up games have failed to live up to their high expectations. In these times of glorified debacles, Shadow of Mordor shone its light through the cloud of anonymity cast by high profile games. As the game got high ratings from critics, I was stupefied as to how a relatively unknown game could garner such high scores. But then, I tried my hand at this unassuming release. What followed was 5 hours of continuous gaming goodness as I was pretty much hooked onto every single aspect through my slaughter of orcs.

Story: Players assume the role of Talion, a ranger of Gondor who is ritually sacrificed to herald the return of the Dark Lord Sauron but instead, is saved by an Elf wraith who pulls him into the world between life and death thus “banishing him from death”. It is a solid premise to build a lot of the story on. I would not delve into this deeper in the fear of spoiling the game.  

Graphics: A few visual hitches aside, Shadow of Mordor looks absolutely breathtaking. The vast landscapes of Mordor laden with decimated structures of old, give character to the bleak world inhabited by orcs and slaves. Speaking of orcs, the facial animations are some of the best seen, ever, in video games with orcs looking very lifelike as the exaggerated movement of their mouths convey their menacing threats and sneers. The game looks best on the PC and PS4 platforms. The Xbox One version of the game, although recently patched to run at 1080p, has lower foliage density and inferior shadows compared to the PS4 and PC. The 360 and PS3 versions are no slouches but the evident age of the last gen consoles do show very clearly.

Gameplay: The way to describe SoM's gameplay would be to say that it has the parkour traversal system of the Assassin's Creed series, the combat system of the Batman Arkham games and the base raiding mechanics of Far Cry 3. To most, it would seem like plagiarism, however, I feel like this is a winning combination. The culmination of all these elements makes for a very enjoyable game. Combat is satisfying and as you decapitate orcs, upgrade your Ranger and Wraith abilities and ride on beasts to decimate your enemies you will feel hours pass without even knowing it. The game's main innovation is the nemesis system. Suppose you fail to kill an orc and make a strategic retreat, the next time you meet that orc, he will remember the circumstances and mock you about running away. Similarly, an orc you thought you killed might return and hunt you down while describing the grisly way in which you scarred/burned/maimed him. It makes for a very good way to make every battle feel personal and each player will forge their own unique stories aside from the main story.

If your current games library doesn't contain a lot of quality titles as of yet, do feel free to add Shadow of Mordor to it.