On the other hand, there's a lot less of Assassin's Creed's navigational annoyances.
This was just not as interesting to me as dashing over rooftops, swinging from poles, creeping through vents and other mainstays of the open-world genre. Just about the only climbing and leaping I did was to unlock fast travel towers, or to go straight up the vertical cliffs that seem to exist purely to inject some verticality into an otherwise entirely flat design. Maybe it's because the environments in the early stage of the game favour open landscapes rather than dense, built up cities, but I spent a lot of time running in large circles around baddies to keep out of their sight lines, on my way to the one obvious bit of cover near their patrol area. According to a number of critics, Shadows of Mordor takes the Assassin's Creed and Batman: Arkham formulae and refines them into pure gold, with immediately satisfying but customisable combat and a living, breathing open world.įor starters, I felt that navigation didn't have the crunch of Assassin's Creed. Middle-earth: Shadows of Mordor has a lot of stuff going for it, and several people whose opinions I really trust have said it's one of the best games of the year so far. Came in a press kit with fancy presentation box, broken sword bottle opener, and glossy brochure.
Better get your pitchforks.Ĭode: Supplied by Warner Bros. Everyone else loves Middle-earth Shadow of Mordor, and Brenna feels a bit left out.