Shadow of War

Lord of the rings was written by the influential and incredibly talented J.R.R. Tolkien. Tolkien, himself, was the author who defined a genre with his incredible sense of detail, imagination and writing. From this, Tolkien’s influence has expanded into different forms of fantasy-based media, other writings and the way people think about fantasy. From this, the Lord of the Rings has become a successful trilogy both in media and reading. Even video games have been created on the lore of the lord of the rings. In 2017 a game based on the lore of Tolkien’s books was made and it was called Shadow of War, a sequel to the highly successful Shadows of Mordor.

Summery:

The player takes control of Talion, a captain of the “Black gate of Mordor” turned wraith. The player plays as Talion who is a wraith soul bounded with the elf Celebrimbor, the jewel maker of the Rings of Power. Play through the various lands of Mordor each with their own unique landscape. As you play through the game you can interact with characters from tolkien’s lore, such as; Gollum, Shelob, Sauron the Nazgul and even Non-canon characters. As a fan of lord of the rings and other works of Tolkien, Monolith Productions have definitely their research on Tolkien lore. However, while the game has created a fantastic story and characters both canon and non-canon. They do break the lore of lord of the rings which works well but at the same time it doesn’t stay true to the original series.  

Playability:

In terms of playability Monolith Productions have made an excellent combination of stealth and close quarter combat. The player can choose to either to engage enemies with stealth or test their combat abilities. Besides this, the player can utilise supernatural abilities for various situations and unlocking these abilities take time and exploration. However, I do find that the game does play similarly to the assassin’s creed franchise. The only difference is that the mechanics are a lot more supernatural based but this doesn’t take away from its playability. Where this game shines though, is its interactions with enemy AIs. Each enemy Ai the player can interact with it unique and well executed. When the player interacts with the enemy, the AIs each have their own unique encounter with enemy. Personally, this is the selling point of the game.

Graphics:

The graphics used in the game are nothing short of excellent, the creative team done such great work in character design, layout, landscape design and set up. It is without a doubt that the team took great influence from Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings Trilogy. While the graphics used are repetitive, they do this in a unique way in terms of landscape. Depending of the landscape there are noticeable differences such as weather, season and effects.

SFX:

What I find extremely intriguing about this game was the SFX used, more specifically the voice acting used. The voice actors the studio used where nothing short on perfect, each voice used the game where so talented that their own voice impersonated the character as a whole. While the character designs where extremely detailed it was the voice acting that tied all of it together.

DLCs:

The DLCs that where created for this game, I found intriguing as the player can take control of two different characters depending on the DLC. These characters are called Baranor and Eltariel as you follow their stories. Each of these characters have their own unique skill sets and combat style that the player can easily adapt to. But the main part of these DLCs, I find, is that they provide a unique perspective from the character’s own view point.

Conclusion:

In conclusion I find that this game provides entertainment with a good storyline and compelling characters.  While this game emphasises the work of Tolkien it does at the same time, goes against it. However, this doesn’t affect it value. While this is both good a bad, personally I find it interesting because a highly talented team gave its players a unique perspective on Tolkien’s work. Over all I do recommend this game to those who love adventure and to those who are Tolkien fans.