Middle-earth review: Shadow of War

How much are you willing to sacrifice? And to suffer?

Among the most successful cinematic colossals in the history of cinema, the Lord of the Rings trilogy occupies a place of absolute respect. According to Metacritic, The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and the Return of the King, are among the Top 200 films of all time. Among the many records recorded, The Lord of the Rings is the highest grossing film trilogy in the world of all time, even higher than other historical franchises such as the original Star Wars trilogy and the Godfather saga. The film series grossed a total of € 2.91 billion, also taking home 17 Academy Awards and many other accolades.

If in the cinematographic field the records are many, where the brand has never managed to break through is in the videogame one. There have been transpositions over the years, starting from 1987. Between RPG and action, however, the result has never been the best. Only in 2014, thanks to Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment e Monolith Productions (which we remember also includes FEAR and Condemned among its creations), we had the opportunity to experience the events of Middle-earth in a completely new connotation thanks to The Shadow of Mordor.

An Open World freely explorable and teeming with evil orcs ready to fight us. Production was supported by the quasi-revolutionary Nemesis System, a system that managed to differentiate the game from other action productions. The game was fun and practically endless, sweeping away the uncertainty of the fans of the saga about the final result in no time. Although sales of The Shadow of Mordor were good, a GOTY of the game was also made, that there was a sequel in the pipeline, it was not so obvious and instead, surprising everyone, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, about eight months ago, he announced Shadow of War.

Below you can take a look at our video review:

It's not over yet.

“A Ring of Power. But power can blind those who crave it and even the strongest bonds can break. "

Shadow of War continues the narrative of Shadow of Mordor, based on JRR Tolkien's legendarium and set between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Like its predecessor, the game also takes inspiration from Peter Jackson's film adaptations. The player will take on the role of the ranger Talion and the spirit of the elven Lord Celebrityimbor, intent on building a new Ring of Power on Mount Doom to create an army and fight and defeat the "Dark Lord" Sauron. Unfortunately, the last blow of the ax, unleashed on the ring, separates Talion from Celebrimbor and the latter ends up in the clutches of the Great Spider, Shelob who assuming the appearance of an attractive woman "temptress" and taking advantage of the vulnerability of Talion, unable to survive without the ghost soul, he manages to get the Ring of power delivered by exchanging it with Celebrimbor. The narrative intro represents a sort of pretext for the beginning of our complicated journey along Middle-earth. It is certainly not brilliant and like its predecessor, even The Shadow of War must be considered as a product in itself, detached from the canonical themes of The Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit from which, inevitably, it preys on inspiration and is linked many times.

The experience proposed by the guys from Monolith Productions is more alive and rich than ever. Also adding a convincing RPG / Action component that will lead us to face various situations. We will first find ourselves discovering Minas Ithil, besieged by a huge army of orcs ready to destroy every defense and to slaughter every human being at the sword's reach. Here is kept one of the seer stones that would make it possible to change the fate of the war and of Middle-earth. We will have to fight fearlessly, rediscovering the Nemesis System (which originates from Rocksteady productions), including dodges, pirouettes, jumps, slashes, coup de grace. A more advanced system compared to The Shadow of Mordor but which still maintains some criticalities.

At times there remains that sense of little fluidity of the action, of the intricacy of the movements, of the dodges and of a strong sense of confusion, when there will be more enemies to attack us, to make us almost roll our eyes. As well as the camera, never perfectly capable of following the action in the best possible way and in various situations in which funny polygonal interpenetrations will arise. So it is true that the system is inspired by the Arkham series but it is far from approaching the perfection and satisfaction that the Batman trilogy can give us. However, it must be said that after a handful of hours we will get used to it and we will think only of slaughtering the orcs using the weapons and powers at our disposal. Our progression provides that with each level increase, which will occur when we perform certain actions, complete missions and / or face special events, you will get a skill point to spend in the appropriate skills screen.

In search of the captains

Here we can empower our ranger; in all there are five classes available: Combat, Predator, Ranged, Ghost, Riding and Story. To name some of the unlockable upgrades, we have the possibility to improve not only the combat but also specific powers such as being able to ride unclean beasts, after having adequately weakened them, the recovery of health through the draining of the life of the Orcs, attacks from a distance, for example by slowing down time, shots, movements, etc. Everything then also passes from the completion of different objectives, primary and secondary, which will give us access to new weapons and precious gems, divided into Power, Vitality and Wealth which, for example, will increase the attack of a specific weapon by a certain percentage. , they will restore a certain amount of health when we kill the enemies or increase the chances that the enemies killed will release "money".

In a short time, it will be possible to improve the level of the protagonist and the skills available. A very pushed progression that will lead the ranger to increasingly use diversified attacks, brutal finishers and facing an increasing number of enemies. They will certainly not shine for intelligence, most of the time, when we disappear from their visual cone, they will almost immediately avoid chasing us or looking for us but they will be able, if in large numbers, to give us a hard time. At some point the good Talion will unlock so many skills, equipment and allies that he will be able to handle, almost alone, all the situations that arise. Dying will be quite difficult, partly because the enemies are not challenging at all, apart from the enemy captains that we will see shortly and a little because we will be able to freely absorb the life energy of the orcs. In case of defeat, Talion will return from the dead, instead of facing that enemy we can head towards another objective in order to increase our level and get better paraphernalia and various upgrades.

You want the ring!

Among the many activities available, very fun, are the clashes with enemy captains. That is, by interrogating orcs marked with green and identifiable through the L1 key that will give us access to the ghostly world we will be able to discover the location of an enemy captain, his critical points, fears and weaknesses. Once identified, sometimes even involuntarily as the enemy captains could set traps for us, aware of the weaknesses, we will have to face them and defeat them to get new upgrades. It will be quite natural to explore the large game map, divided into areas, not only to hunt down enemy captains but also to search for objects and collectibles. The true potential of the title, however, will arise from the second act onwards.

In fact, using the Ring of power, we will be able to create our very personal army to deploy against the orc forces, enhancing it with all the power ups available. We will have a maximum of five champions to deploy alongside us. We can then recruit the Uruk, entrusting them with infiltration tasks or simply calling them back when we need immediate reinforcements. The system is truly portentous and profound, managing to give greater prominence to the enemy ranks and the variety with which we are going to approach the clash. If we were to be killed by an enemy captain, it will happen, trust me, the enemy in question will increase in rank and at the same time the rewards he will leave us, once killed, will also be better. This will sometimes push us to have ourselves killed on purpose, so that the enemy captain reaches an ever higher rank (up to legendary). It goes without saying that the battle will be increasingly difficult and we will have to pay a lot of attention. Captain after captain, commander after commander, we will weaken the enemy ranks until culminating in the clash of clashes, the siege.

For Gondor

The sieges will finally make sense of all our actions, making us experience firsthand the battles that characterized the Tolkian universe and the Third Age. They are very satisfying, not only in "practical" terms, as we will have to limit ourselves to slaughtering the orcs until the regent makes his entrance, but also in graphic and scenic terms the graphics engine manages to give its best. The Nemesis System will allow us to also summon the bodyguards, who will be able to intervene through the commands we will give through the directional keys. Remember not to go on an adventure, but to prepare properly before the siege. Defeating the captains and commanders will weaken Sauron's army, so face it the Clash missions which will be highlighted on the map by a skull. Everything is based on a hierarchical system, so start with the “little fish” and then get to the tip of the pyramid.

Although there is great variety in the actions that we will be able to do, in the primary and secondary missions available, the map in any case with good dimensions and the Nemesis System that acts as a backbone to the production, a certain repetition in the actions will be perceived after a few hours. Of course it will be the player who decides how to outline the progression of the adventure, but even if you vary, you will inevitably end up doing the same things over and over again. Hunt the captain, identify him, kill him, attack fortresses, weaken the enemy ranks, etc. etc. A sort of contradiction considering the great potential of the Nemesis System; few activities to do, but characterized by a lot of uncertainty and imponderability. Perhaps to better enjoy the title it is advisable to play short and intense sessions and not overly long duration.

Among the other available modes, we have the transposition of the sieges in online multiplayer, Feida Online, a mode in which we will be able to avenge the death of other players or be avenged for our own death and some missions to prevent Sauron from regaining Middle-earth. . All these activities greatly increase the longevity of an already vast title in itself and will reward us with XP points.

Shadows of Mordor!

From a technical point of view, the Shadow of War, at least on consoles, doesn't look very good but not that bad either. The graphic downgrade between cutscenes and plays is evident but perhaps a bit exasperated by some online reviews. The out of tune notes concern the great uncertainty in the basic commands of the protagonist, often he will move in a cumbersome way by performing maneuvers, different from those we would like. Even the elven skills do not improve the overall feeling, leading us most of the time to even get stuck in some element of the scenario or not be able to climb a wall or a tower as we would like. Even during the fight a certain uncertainty of the system will be perceived.

The input lag is not the best and it will happen to not be able to hit a target that we would like when attacked by multiple enemies at the same time. The animations are scarce, and the attention paid to the polygonal models is not always convincing. Unrealistic movements of the faces, of the mouth when the characters speak and of the hair but otherwise the graphics engine represents a good step forward compared to the predecessor. However, these shortcomings are compensated for by a great variety of enemies, which differ from each other. The game has a resolution of 1080p and maintains the almost granite 30fps, small uncertainties of sorts, which have arisen sporadically during the adventure. Finally, from the sound point of view, the game is completely voiced in spagonolo, and the soundtrack, while not memorable, is really enjoyable.