Lord of the Rings fans gets a treat this week with a live-action short on Shadow of Mordor from the popular YouTube group Corridor Digital. They’ve teamed up with Warner Brothers to hype up the upcoming release of Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor. While dialogue can be a bit corny, this was a well produced short that fans should enjoy.
GenreAction
Platforms xbox360
DEVELOPER Monolith Productions | PUBLISHER Codemasters | RELEASE DATE
Shadow of Mordor Reviews xbox360
theguardian.com review
That may sound hyperbolic, and true, Shadows of Mordor isn’t perfect by any means. But right now, it’s my main contender for game of the year, simply because, in its lack of pretension, its attention to detail and its understanding that video games first and foremost should be fun, it puts everything else I’ve played recently in its long shadow.
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giantbomb.com review
Shadow of Mordor is going to give other developers in this genre a lot to think about. This would be a perfectly competent open-world game even without the dynamic AI, but that one system works so well that it makes you feel like you’re having a tailored game experience that’s unique to you and your actions. That’s a powerful feeling, and I hope it’s one similar games make the same effort to replicate in the future.
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joystiq.com review
Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor is a well-paced sandbox game with a revolutionary new game mechanic in the Nemesis System, which I imagine we’ll see iterated on in the years to come. The Nemesis System creates the opportunity for two players to have wildly different experiences fighting the Uruk-hai, while Talion collects trinkets and upgrades. Your nemesis (an Uruk who will find a way to kill you time and time again) will be completely different from your friend’s, and you’ll have plenty of unique experiences to share about different tactics you used to take out a certain warchief. Or, how you were chasing a captain who retreated in battle and ran right into the jaws of a wild caragor, robbing you of sweet victory.
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polygon.com review
Leveling up allows you to unlock skills along a talent tree, which turns Talion into ever more of a badass. Just shooting enemies with a bow not enough? You can give yourself the ability to teleport to them with an arrow shot, allowing you to close gaps and finish off injured or retreating enemies. Or maybe you need more options to stun enemies; I fell in love with one move that leaves an enemy incapacitated after you dodge over them. The game has a huge list of these helpful skills, and they’re easy enough to use that I always felt powerful, even when greatly outnumbered.
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gaming-age.com review
All in all, I really enjoyed Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor. While the game had always been on my radar, I still find myself pretty surprised with how fantastic it ended up being. It provides an open-world experience that’s easily on-par with the best in the genre, while providing some of the most fun I’ve had with a combat system since Batman: Arkham Asylum. It really does a great job of blending a number of mechanics seamlessly, and again pays a suitable level of respect to the lore and universe that it plays in. I’d highly suggest checking out Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor when it hits store shelves on September 30th.
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gamestyle.com review
Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor isn’t an earth shattering, game changing title. But it does do enough to move the genre on a bit. The Nemesis System in particular should start to make other developers look at how they create enemies and other characters in their own game world. What you do have here is a game that is just great to play, that will soak up many of your hours and leave you wanting more when it has ended.
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psu.com review
Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor delivers in everything it sets out to achieve. Appeasing not only fans of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings saga but of gamers alike. With a masterfully brutal combat system, superb animation and graphics and a great innovation with the Nemesis System. Monolith has breathed fresh air into a license that was struggling to find footing in the gaming industry.
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lazygamer.net review
Despite these issues, Shadow of Mordor is a ridiculously fun game, filled with all kinds of fantastic, emergent experiences. Running around Mordor, encountering captains, fighting for your life or dying and watching someone benefit from your death – it’s a truly addicting and thrilling game. For fans of Tolkien’s lore, there is also a ton to discover; artifacts can unlock memories and secrets while environments have full descriptions and lore for those who wish to learn more. Just when I thought I’d explored everything there was to do, I kept finding more fun things. Even after watching the credits roll, I wanted to go back into Mordor and hunt down more Captains and Warchiefs.
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godisageek.com review
Just like Batman before it, Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor is the greatest Rings game we’ve seen, and is easily the best use of the license to date. The combat and Nemesis System alone are worth the asking price, but it’s the world itself that steals the show. Mordor is alive but dying, still vital but mortally poisoned by Sauron’s festering evil, a darkness that threatens to consume everything – even Talion himself. In a brave move, Shadow of Mordor eschews Tolkien’s almost trademark black and white hero versus villain dynamic to present a protagonist who walks in the grey places, caught between doing the right thing and satisfying his own need for vengeance and absolution
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digitalchumps.com review
Presentation aside, is this game fun? Yes. A resounding ‘yes’! You will have plenty of action awaiting you, enough cerebral titillation with the role-playing game elements and hours of time willfully wasted exploring the lands of Mordor to see what it holds. This game might be the sleeper game of the year for 2014, and right now it deserves to be. It’s certainly worth your time and effort, so don’t pass it up because you think it’s another movie/book related title trying to make a quick buck. Believe in the efforts of Monolith on this one, gamers. They did a great job.
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eurogamer.net review
One of the most enduring themes of Tolkien’s universe has been the corrupting influence of power, but this has almost always been explored through the eyes of individuals that refuse to abuse that power. In death, Talion is free to do what those characters were never able to, and you experience first-hand what an intoxicating high that can be. At the start of the game you’re not much more than a lowly Ranger, sneaking through camps and silently slitting Orcish throats in the night. By the end of the game you’re boldly strolling through those same camps, as terrified uruks whisper tales of the Ranger-turned-Gravewalker over fortifying gulps of grog. There’s plenty to see and do in Mordor when you’re dead; all that’s left, in the words of a wise old wandering wizard, is to decide what to do with the time that is given to you.
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gameblog.fr review
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eurogamer.es review
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destructoid.com review
Ultimately, like many ambitious projects, Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor doesn’t deliver on everything it sets out to do. Although Monolith’s heart is in the right place and the studio honors the lore, it doesn’t really add anything that’s worth seeing outside of some solid open world gameplay. It isn’t a bad game, it just feels far too repetitive for its own good.
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