Middle-earth

My last video game review dates back to February. Not that I lack the desire to write on the subject, but one must admit this year has been rather disappointing in the digital leisure department. To tell the truth, my PS4 pads were gathering dust until recently: this October has kindly deigned to offer us a handful of interesting titles. Between "Sherlock Holmes: Crime & Punishment", my intellectual alibi, and "Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor", its dim-witted little brother, I chose to talk to you about the second one first (notably because Midori published her review of "Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments").

When I first heard about Shadow of Mordor, it was in an unflattering context. An Ubisoft developer claimed the game reused Assassin's Creed 2's assets, in particular the animations and - by extension - the context in which they are used. By the title's release, the controversy had subsided and the reviews were rather positive, so I took the plunge. One of marketing's ironies holds true: negative publicity sells, just as much as positive publicity...

The idea behind "Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor" is rather surprising. First, because the developers chose to go with a story that has nothing to do with the ongoing cinematic trilogy dedicated to Bilbo. Then, because they developed an unusual and bold concept despite an already-seen foundation, whereas licensed games have rather accustomed us to reheated fare from start to finish. Was this the sign of uncommon ambition? I would tend to answer in the affirmative.

The game has you play Talion, a ranger of Gondor assigned to the Black Gate. The poor man got killed along with his family, but he cannot reach the beyond, stuck as he is between two worlds: quickly, an elven specter joins him, revealing that they have both been cursed, and that only the death of the sorcerer at the origin of the curse - the Black Hand of Sauron - will lift the spell. Talion and his spectral ally will therefore gambol across Mordor and merrily slaughter Uruks left and right, until they find the one responsible for their condition and squash his face. "Slaughter", but not only, for the heroes will discover the ability to take possession of the Uruks' minds to turn them against one another.

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Reading this synopsis, one could fear a moldy scenario based on "Woman in the Fridge" and other worn-out clichés of little interest. And you know what? That is exactly what "Shadow of Mordor" delivers. You play two vengeful fellows who roam the pampa in Sauron sauce, slaughtering the villains responsible for their misfortunes. In doing so, the duo (so serious it becomes hilarious) meets insipid non-player characters poorly staged, the whole garnished with lines like "Those bastards set a trap for us, let's not keep them waiting!!1111!1", far too on-the-nose. On the characters front, the whole gamut is there: the funny-and-gruff dwarf, the woman-who-reminds-the-hero-of-his-wife, the very-mysterious villain with his pals the dumb-but-strong villain and the sadistic-but-not-very-strong villain. In short, the script suffers from a fine failure of inspiration, compounded by a flimsy narration that struggles to fascinate. At most, the scenario's implications could interest Tolkien fans: the elven specter is a character from the Silmarillion, whose underdeveloped role remains particularly important in the Middle-earth myth. Ultimate insult, the developers also botched the adventure's ending: a pathetic battle followed by a QTE final boss (...) to conclude, in a very bland manner, a story whose potential was already low.

The artistic part is sufficient, although it fails to save the scenario from shipwreck. The visuals draw largely on Peter Jackson's films, focusing on Mordor and the Uruk-hai "culture". To vary the pleasures, two regions are offered: Mordor as one imagines it, with its devastated ochre lands, and Nurn, a fertile zone supposedly supplying Sauron's armies for the war of the ring. One sometimes catches oneself admiring the panoramas, all the more so as the draw distance is very good on PS4. The Uruks, like Talion and his ally, are visually faithful to the spirit of the two trilogies. It is in the attitude and dialogues of evil's minions that the main surprise lies: savage and vicious, they nevertheless possess a spark of humanity that was missing in the films. Listening to Uruks talk among themselves about the ranger's (Talion's nickname) latest feats is often amusing.

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With an appetizer like this one, one could be tempted to call Shadow of Mordor a daft turkey. Yet the gameplay succeeds where the scenario and atmosphere fail. The game has three "conventional" parts: exploration, stealth, combat.

The first two parts are directly inspired by the Assassin's Creed series. Talion can climb anything and everything, perhaps even more than in the "Assassin's Creed" games that have taken up the habit of imposing a few limitations on themselves. Here, every wall can serve as a foothold for the hero, with the possible exception of certain rocks. Since Mordor is mainly composed of plains and ruins, climbing takes on a more secondary role than in Assassin's Creed. One negative point that has its upsides: the legendary lack of precision of the Assassin's Creed games, which we find again in Shadow of Mordor, is less annoying given that the game imposes no tense climbing session. Stealth is also inspired by the Ubisoft series. You hide in the tall grass, lure the Uruks one after the other and beat them up out of sight. Note that the artificial intelligence is truly feeble, even profoundly stupid: blind and deaf, the Uruks also have short memories, since it suffices to hide for 10 seconds at the top of a tower to see them walk away in single file towards their assigned zone. One then merely has to climb back down and assassinate them one after another, knowing they will never turn around to check whether their comrades are still behind them. Surreal and simplistic, but ultimately less unpleasant than an overly punitive system.

Direct confrontations are inspired by the Batman Arkham series: the point is to press the right buttons depending on the situations that arise, to smash the compact crowd piling up around the hero. A sort of rhythm game in disguise.
By default, you strike with the "square" button. An enemy attacks? You drop "square" to parry with "triangle". A more powerful enemy lunges? You dodge with "cross". Each adversary has a weakness, generally easy to exploit. Once a few attacks have been chained, it becomes possible to deliver devastating special strikes (area attack, execution, possession, ...). The difficulty comes from the number of enemies: with 10-15 Uruks around Talion, one must stay vigilant and correctly prioritize one's actions. Beyond that, the generous timings and numerous escape options make the title fundamentally easier than its model. The staging being particularly successful, one will enjoy the brawls for their entertaining side: delivering the coup de grâce to an Uruk and hearing one's controller (PS4, in this case) reverberate the sound of the blade falling on his opponent's metal armor is rather thrilling, however barbaric it may be. On the other hand and like the other parts of the gameplay, the fights lack precision. The difference here is that the game will quite often ask you to land a particular strike on a given adversary. Yet, it is practically impossible to correctly select one's target in the middle of a crowd.

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If we stopped there, Shadow of Mordor would be an entertaining but fundamentally idiotic title. Fortunately, the "Nemesis System" saves the whole thing.

Behind that cute name hides a semi-random management of the officers of Sauron's army. The game creates two dozen-odd characters, endowed with a name, a personality, strengths, weaknesses and a memory. These "deluxe" Uruks each busy themselves climbing the hierarchy by carrying out missions, either to gain prestige, or to crush their competitor(s)' mugs. In the first part of the game, the "Nemesis System" mostly serves to grasp the generals' weaknesses: an Uruk can be hard to bring down in combat (immune to stealth or ranged attacks or to executions, for example) but lose all composure when a particular event occurs (a Caragor charge, a betrayal within his own group, ...). Exploiting the enemy's weaknesses facilitates certain confrontations (already quite easy, it must be admitted) and increases the value of the rewards you receive for triumphing over an Uruk general. On that subject, your heroes can progress in three ways: either by unlocking skills and their upgrades, or by equipping their weapons with runes dropped by Uruk generals, or by buying health upgrades through a kind of "money".

It is in the second part of the game that Talion and the elven specter learn to take possession of the Uruks' minds. All enemies - minions, captains or war chiefs - can be possessed (with a few knocks to the face, for the most powerful). If you manage to take control of a captain, it becomes possible to "groom your protégé". You can order him to attack one of his competitors, and make sure of his victory so that he comes out stronger. You can then advise him to present himself as a bodyguard to a powerful war chief. Then, push him to challenge that war chief and take his place. Unless you prefer to attack the war chief directly, after making sure his bodyguards have been won over to your cause? Once the "branding" system (possession) is in your hands, the game's possibilities multiply tenfold, and provided you are a bit creative (and sadistic), you will take pleasure in generating civil wars within Sauron's army. One can envision dozens of hours of gameplay devising often delicious machinations.

That said, like the system of the "Fable" games (Peter Molyneux), the semi-random generation of the Uruks does not give birth to NPCs as strong as predetermined ones would have been. There is indeed that (short) phase where the game tries to confront you with the Uruk who hates you the most, but we are very far from the dramatic intensity a final showdown between two Nemesis should carry. The fact remains that overall, I was positively surprised by the possibilities offered by the "Nemesis System".

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Ultimately, "Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor" is a fun title, solid from a gameplay standpoint. its flagship feature, innovative, turns out to be properly exploited for a first try. A savory, rather unexpected success, lessened by a pathetic storyline one will have to mentally draw a line under.