By Steven Wright
Contributing Writer
If “Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor” were to go in front of the Honor Council for plagiarism, it would be convicted before its generic protagonist could even open his bearded maw. Not that this is necessarily bad – after all, this is a video game, not a term paper, and in that world theft of ideas goes not only unpunished, but is quietly encouraged.
However, despite this, Monolith Production’s new game manages to up the ante on the action/adventure genre by augmenting second-hand ideas and adding a handful of its own, ultimately resulting in a far more robust adventure than anyone ever expected.
“Mordor” borrows so liberally and so widely from previous titles that listing them almost feels like crafting a comprehensive encyclopedia of big-budget video game clichés of the modern age. I’ll save you the time, but it still needs to be said: its combination of rhythmic, crowd-focused combat, slow-drip item accumulation and half-hearted stealth will be familiar to anyone who has so much as shared air with a modern game console.
Still, while most attempts to shove such a surfeit of different approaches under the same roof typically produces an uneven experience, Monolith has endeavored not to cut any leg of its stool too short. And though the individual systems by themselves couldn’t hold up an entire game, together, they manage to support fairly heavy weight.
As its name reflects, “Mordor” is set in the rich world of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings (LOTR) trilogy, one of the most beloved works of fantasy literature in the canon.
Of course, this is still a big-budget video game, so the story and writing are completely forgettable even at best; however, thanks to the “Middle-Earth” license, it also constantly panders to its (largely imagined) central demographic of hardcore LOTR fans who apparently don’t need any of its impenetrable lore to be unraveled for them.
Characters spew out dozens of proper nouns without explanation, all with puzzling apostrophes and bizarre pronunciations, as though they expect you to have a tab open to the Tolkien wiki throughout your entire playthrough.
Though this may seem like a serious issue, by the end of the game you will likely grow so tired of the parts of the plot you do manage to grasp that you’ll find yourself reaching for the “skip” button anytime one of the game’s embarrassingly laborious cinematics begins to play.
Though its central plot threads leave much to be desired, “Mordor”‘s chief addition to the action/adventure formula does much to make up for it, offering players a chance to craft their own stories where Monolith’s own fell short.
This addition, the unfortunately-named “Nemesis System,” does much to develop the hordes of faceless “Orcs” the player slays by the hundreds throughout the game’s fairly short playtime. Essentially, the game randomly generates a cast of Orc generals from a large pool, each with their own personalities, strengths and weaknesses.
For example, if the player were to learn that a certain general is deathly afraid of wasps, they could drop a nest of the vile creatures near that general, which would cause them to become scared and therefore easier to kill.
While these faintly gimmicky traits begin to wear thin near the game’s halfway point, once the player is given the ability to “brand” Orcs and bring them to his or her side, the true potential of the system becomes abundantly clear. One can pick a random Orc and ensure their smooth rise through the ranks; one can cause an Orc’s bodyguard to backstab its master; one can even command the entire leadership of Sauron’s Army and kill them with the press of one button.
Though the possibilities are far from endless, they supply much-needed variation on the game’s central ideas, as well as context to the endless bloodshed that lines the game from beginning to end. It’s a refreshing addition to a genre that has remained stagnant for a half-decade, and for that the game should be praised.
That praise should come with an asterisk, however. For all its success, “Mordor” is not one of the best games of the year; no, it is one of the only big-budget games released this year stout enough to hang a hat on. “Mordor” may be a stellar game, but it’s far from the boundary-pushing work that independent studios have managed to crank out during this low period. Instead, “Mordor” is only a few notches above a reprint; an ambitious student going through his masters’ work and copying it line-by-line, sharpening the corners, only occasionally hazarding a new concept. It may produce something akin to brilliance, but the length of its acknowledgments section betrays the truth of its impure lineage.
– Contact Steven Wright, Contributing Writer
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