izigame.me

Middle-earth dilogy is one of the best things that happened to LOTR videogames, and even that those games are not counted as canon, they still offer amazing possibility to revisit iconic locations and encounter famous characters of Tolkien's epic. And one of very best things is that both games take all the designs from Peter Jackson's movies. Well, obviously Jackson's six movies basically created a canonical look of everything in LOTR for the whole world and this image was heavily integrated into mass-culture. But we do not need to take such things in videogames for granted. Now, when Rings of Power series exist too, some game can take them for inspiration source as well. But I never watched those series for many different reasons and I personally probably would ignore such product. But anyway, jumping back to Middle-earth dilogy, I must note that sequel actually went really far in terms of developers creativity. If the first game could have been seen as still more or less a canon thing, this one just stands too far from any canon takes. And most discussed thing by fans and simple gamers was the portrayal of Shelob here, of course. The fact that a giant spider beast can turn into seductive woman with looks of a model was found very strange decision by many gamers. And I have to agree on this one. Shelob was always just a giant monster in canon and that's basically it. Not to mention that she almost ate Frodo if not Sam. I don't get this trend of turning some creatures in fantasy books which were just simple beasts into seductive women. The same happened to Nagini in Fantastic Beasts sequel. I don't have anything against seductive women but just why?.. Then the whole thing about the ending was also heavily discussed and while I can't speak about it here to prevent any spoilers, I also can't really agree that such thing was necessary. I know that Jackson's movies made up some things as well, but there their concepts were less controversial, I think. For example, The Eye of Sauron as an actual eye is obviously Jackson's idea but it fits super well and does not raise any questions. But speaking about the actual gameplay, this game is probably a big improvement over original in terms of everything. It offers a complete loot system, modified Nemesis system, modified combat system and big epic battles between armies. Hearing dialogues between Celebrimbor and Talion is just as interesting, as it was in the first game, and all the humor related to orcs is also here as well. So, because of all this I absolutely would recommend this game to many people and you do not need to be LOTR fan to enjoy it, just like it was with the first game. Besides, Nemesis system is absolutely unique and even now in 2024 no any other game studio adopted anything similar to it in its projects. But even that Shadow of War in many terms is just more enjoyable game than Shadow of Mordor, I still did advise to play both of them to experience a complete story of Celebrimbor and Talion. Canon or not but it's pretty damn good. Besides, Celebrimbor's portrayal in both these games probably is now a canon look in mass-culture just like everything in Jackson's movies.