EGX: Shadow of Mordor

The first game I’ve had a go at EGX was Shadow of Mordor. It’s out on the 3rd October and what I tried looks very promising. It is set before the Lord of the Rings films and focusses on ranger named Talion who is killed and brought back by a wraith. Thus he gains wraith like abilities to help him fight against the Orcs of Mordor.

I played a part of the game that had me trying to take out Orc War Chiefs (Think of them as enemy bosses). To do this you must infiltrate their hierarchy. This is done by targeting Orcs that are linked with the warchiefs. Once you’ve targeted one you can hunt them down. The first one I fought was engaged in a fight with another Orc captain, so instead of jumping straight into combat I decided to wait and let them wear each other down for a bit before finishing off one of them. This meant I was left with only one already weakened combatant. Once you’ve weakened them enough you can dominate their minds with your wraith like powers and instruct them to do your bidding. In this case I instructing the Orc to betray his war chief, starting a huge battle between each others forces.

I jumped into the fray with my already dominated Orc to help me out, we quickly finished off the war chief and so my already dominated Orc became the new War Chief. Meaning I now have control of a much larger force that can assist me in taking out the other war chiefs. It’s a very interesting mechanic that means you have to use your wits to systematically take out Saurons army.

The gameplay was a lot like a mix between Assassins Creed and the Batman Arkham series. It follows the fighting mechanics of he Arkham series, which has perhaps one of the best fighting mechanics of any action game. The Assassins Creed elements focus on the stealth and free running aspects as well as your wraith abilities that allow you to mark targets and see their weaknesses.

Shadow of Mordor was a lot of fun and I can’t wait to get my teeth stuck into it. I only had a short time with the game but what I saw was a great licensed game that borrows elements from other games but makes it original in its’ own way.