REVIEW : Middle-earth : Shadow of War (PS4/ PS4 Pro)
Just like Shadow of Mordor, Shadow of War is filled to the brim with Middle Earth lore and we are going to review it today.
While Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor just touched upon some of the Middle Earth lore, Shadow of War story is tangled in with the lore and in a good way. The game starts of with Talion and Celebrimbor forging a new ring. Soon after we see Talion confronting Shelob and this just the begining. Rest of the common crowd like orcs are surprisingly well done too. The sequel improves on the first in so many ways. If you like the first game you definitely going to love Shadow of War.
Shadow of War has an open world with stealth and parkour being integral part of it but the fun lies in fighting hordes of orcs and gaining XP to unlock skills to kill orcs in more satisfying manner. Early on you will mastering just attack, parry and counter moves but by the middle of the game you can freeze enemies just by vaulting over them and hitting midair arrows.
The revamped adds fuel to fire of this satisfying chaos. Each area has an army of Orcs with captains and war chiefs. The world reacts to each encounter you have with an orc. If you are killed by an Orc, then that orc grows in status and start climbing up the ladder in Orc hierarchy. This makes every encounter personal, with revenge missions for killing the orc that killed. You get better rewards for killing such an orc including better gear.
This is a great distraction from the main plot as getting vengeance becomes utmost priority and you start forgetting the main campaign.
This works well too, as Shadow of War does not have a great narrative but each inter locking system provides amazing stories unique to every player.
Though some system heavy games suffer from repetition, Shadow of War makes even normal confrontation unique and memorable. You might be after one captain and see another captain waiting to ambush and whole mission could just turn into a big brawl. This is where Shadow of War presents in asynchronous multiplayer, you can track down Captains who have killed other players and take revenge.
The first 10 hours of game are reintroduction to game mechanics and old story. By the end of the 10th hour you are cut loose and tasked with building you own army to fight Sauron’s Army.
You start dominating the Orcs to serve you. Dominating Orcs is fairly simple and has it perks as the dominated Orcs help you in battle, fun part dominating the captains and making them join your army. They can command your army or act like bodyguards or even be spies for your plan of killing a war chief and killing the war chief instead.
You can even take control of fortress with your army. As you level up you unlock better skills and are able to command more captains.
Most of Shadow of War main campaign design I very basic similar to Shadow of Mordor, like free some prisoners or kill an Orc. But with story mission, building your army and Nemesis system, there is a lot going around and this keeps you engaged for hours. You can even dominate the monsters and change the aspects of battle when you fly on a drake and shoot fire down upon your enemies.
While Shadow of Mordor was just Dull and Grey, Shadow of War takes more scenic route with landscapes ranging from war torn cities to jungles to icy mountains. Playing it on PS4 Pro there are lot of sights to behold with each area different compared to others.
Combat of Shadow of War has been refined with target locking more fluent but sometimes it targets the wrong orc at wrong time and you end up wasting killer move.
Skill Tree is simple and easy to understand but when in a hurry it hard to navigate through skill tree, map and Quests.
Microtransaction are totally optional and you will not even encounter them until the fortress defense game with requires real money or in game currency to bolster the defense. Even then it is not really required as you will never be short of in game currency which you eanr while playing the game.
