“Pack up your sunflower smile, and your bandana blues.
Take your worthless denials, they’re all you’ve got left to lose.”
~Townes Van Zandt
Just beat that Shadow of Mordor on the Playstation 4. Spent $49.52 on it, which in retrospect I’d say is about $15 or $19.52 too much. Then again maybe $49.52 means less to you than it does to me, maybe it means more. Funny thing, money. If I had to choose between a month worth of groceries or Shadow of Mordor I suppose I wouldn’t starve myself. Maybe I’m getting ahead of the logical linear progress of a review.
So, well, it’s like Batman. You press some buttons, lots of people are fighting you at once. Pretty sleek. Sauron made you undead forever or something, so you gotta fight through his soldiers to fight through his captains to fight through his warchiefs to fight through his elite guard to fight him so you can die.
The secret ingredient in this tater tot casserole is the “Nemesis System”. An open-world, non scripted feature that gives the game a lot of its heart. All NPCs from captain to above are given personalities, traits, and names. They then react to you, remember you, come back to fight another day with scars from your previous encounter. The system really is the bread and butter of this game being good. The variety of orcs in the game really is remarkable, with no two captains looking alike. After a while you will start noticing certain captains which pulls you into the game more.
The effect of the Nemesis System is amplified in the second act of the game, when you gain the ability to brainwash orcs to join yoru army and serve you. If you brainwash a captain and help him up to the rank of warchief, you control him along with all his underlings. It ain’t just the frosting of the game, but the cupcake too. The game shines when you’re manipulating your way through Sauron’s army, aiding and guiding your puppets from the shadows, plotting military take overs and riots.
If the Nemesis System and the brainwashing is the frosting and cupcake of the game, then that makes the rest of the game the paper wrapper. The characters are hollow stereotypes, impossible to feel any empathy for. The plot is boring at best, frustrating at worst. The parkour ranges from mindlessly easy to frustratingly unintuitive. The game’s ultimate boss is just a QTE battle.
The graphics look nice, fluid, but not that good. You can tell they had to sacrifice a thing or two to get it working on the old generation. Here’s a photo I took of my television to give you a little taste.
As you can see, the cloak detail is quite impressive. As you play through the game your cloak will flutter and flow in such a brilliant display that you’ll immediately call up your mother and tell her we’re in the future now.
The game is short and ended abruptly in a QTE boss fight that downgraded my opinion of the game from “pretty cool I guess!” to “what am I doing here”. I’m partial to endings, when it comes to stories there is nothing as important as their last impressions. Abrupt ending, QTE boss fight, what am I doing here?
Sure, I could go back and play around, but when the credits roll I’m done. I got stuff to do, I should have mowed the lawn last week. If you end up playing this game, just go ahead and take your sweet Texas time along the way.
The beginning and middle of this game really are a blast, finding your way around the game’s various systems, a bottomless popcorn bag of fun and exploration. Near the endgame you’ll find the game wasn’t really as open as you thought. Then you press a couple buttons when the screen tells you to and it’ll end before you even realize you’re experiencing an ending.
Keep on Halloween Chooglin’
“Sure, I could go back and play around, but when the credits roll I’m done. I got stuff to do, I should have mowed the lawn last week. If you end up playing this game, just go ahead and take your sweet Texas time along the way.”
That’s a great way to sum up a Phantom Pain review!