|
Alex_Tingey's Shadow Of Mordor (PC)
|
| [January 18, 2018 11:44:35 PM]
|
I finished my third gameplay session of Shadow of Mordor tonight, and I’m still enjoying it thoroughly. I now have about three hours of gameplay into the game overall and I think that I am starting to understand the sort of “flow” that the game requests of the player. I do have some critiques of the game, namely the somewhat antiquated and overused “tower” system that reveals specific portions of the map could have been made into a sort of territory competition with the captains instead. However, keeping the release year of the game in mind (2014) it isn’t quite as bad as other, more modern takes on the same system.
The combat, while very fun, does start to feel somewhat less impactful if you don’t take a stealth approach, which has really pushed me to take said stealth approach to more recent missions. I think the stealth approach is also ethically interesting, as in whether you ought to take the stealth approach to missions to minimize the unnecessary casualties to the enemy side. Other games like Dishonored have explored this sort of ethicality, wherein if you kill people on the enemy side you get a bad ending, however I don’t know if there is any such implication within Shadow of Mordor, or whether there should be. While you really can play the game as a sort of spectacle fighter, beat-em-up, I think the real fun of the game comes from running around on the top of ruins and terrorizing enemies by dropping wasp nests on their heads, or simply coming up with creative ways to sneak around the various enemies. The skills of the game, such as slowing time down before shooting the arrows, or the stun skill which can be followed up with a huge combo is quite fun.
To be honest I haven’t found the narrative of the game necessarily captivating, but I think that is mostly because I haven’t advanced quite far enough into the game to truly know what is going on. There is definitely a sense of authorial reticence within the game’s story design. Even with all of these criticisms I can genuinely say that this is a very fun game, and I’m not even upset that I had to shell out the $20 dollars to play it as I am sure that I will be continuing to play it on my own time throughout the semester.
add a comment 
|
| [January 17, 2018 12:57:48 AM]
|
I really enjoy shadow of Mordor. I found the game-play so far to be quite entertaining, and the game is visually stunning. I did have only one gripe, which is that conventionally the spacebar is used for jumping in PC games, however, Shadow of Mordor’s control scheme has it so that sprinting is the space bar, and sneaking is shift. Thankfully this is easily remedied by the excellent customization options. The story is engaging, I like the vignette style of narration in the tutorial and introduction area. I then liked how the game gave you the reigns so quickly after the basic tutorial and taught the player by having them play through the game in a manor that it would be throughout the rest of the game. In terms of topics relating to what we discussed in class I found it particularly interesting to note that the nemesis system is not the same monetization model as the nemesis system in the sequel Shadow of War. Shadow of War’s use of a pay-to-win monetization strategy through the utilization of loot boxes has come under fire recently, and rightfully so, as many players say it is impossible to play the game without essentially gambling through buying extra lootboxes to further yourself within the nemesis system. However, Shadow of Mordor does not contain this same monetization model, despite having nearly the same in game necessity for the nemesis system. This could call into question the ethicality of forcing certain aspects of gameplay to be more difficult by establishing various perceived paywalls as roadblocks to furthering in the game.
add a comment
|
|
|
 |
Alex_Tingey's Shadow Of Mordor (PC)
|
|
Current Status: Playing
GameLog started on: Wednesday 17 January, 2018
|
 |
|
Alex_Tingey's opinion and rating for this game |
|
I really enjoy shadow of Mordor. I found the game-play so far to be quite entertaining, and the game is visually stunning. I did have only one gripe, which is that conventionally the spacebar is used for jumping in PC games, however, Shadow of Mordor’s control scheme has it so that sprinting is the space bar, and sneaking is shift. Thankfully this is easily remedied by the excellent customization options. The story is engaging, I like the vignette style of narration in the tutorial and introduction area. I then liked how the game gave you the reigns so quickly after the basic tutorial and taught the player by having them play through the game in a manor that it would be throughout the rest of the game. In terms of topics relating to what we discussed in class I found it particularly interesting to note that the nemesis system is not the same monetization model as the nemesis system in the sequel Shadow of War. Shadow of War’s use of a pay-to-win monetization strategy through the utilization of loot boxes has come under fire recently, and rightfully so, as many players say it is impossible to play the game without essentially gambling through buying extra lootboxes to further yourself within the nemesis system. However, Shadow of Mordor does not contain this same monetization model, despite having nearly the same in game necessity for the nemesis system. This could call into question the ethicality of forcing certain aspects of gameplay to be more difficult by establishing various perceived paywalls as roadblocks to furthering in the game.
Rating (out of 5): |
|
