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My Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor review - from a lifelong Tolkienite

nusilver
Rohan

Nov 10 2014, 12:38am

Post #1 of 5 (1093 views)
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My Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor review - from a lifelong Tolkienite Can't Post

http://www.invisiblegamer.net/reviews/shadow-mordor-review-shadow-greatness/

Enjoy! I've had the game since launch, but wanted to finish it before I did my review and it took awhile. I also usually get review copies of games I review, but had to buy this one, so I didn't have that added pressure of getting it up by an embargo date.


F.Wizard
Registered User

Nov 15 2014, 10:58pm

Post #2 of 5 (893 views)
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Shamus Young review says similar things [In reply to] Can't Post

You're not the only one to recognize that the SoM story is all wrong. Shamus Young, a fairly well-known game critic, had a lot to say about how Shadow of Morder developers missed the point of Tolkien's works. Main quotes:

"...a Lord of the Rings game in name and lore only, because the tone and themes are jarringly wrong...In the original work, the forces of good win at the end because nobody had the heart to murder Gollum, even though they all knew he deserved it. The Hobbits were the key to victory not because they were fierce and cunning, but because they were guileless and gentle. Their innocence protected them from the allure of a ring that devoured normal guys just like Talion: Guys who want to solve the world's problems by stabbing...
...Shadow of Mordor doesn't just use Tolkien's rich world as a stage for cheap revenge porn, it uses that stage as a place to say that Tolkien himself was wrong. Power doesn't corrupt, evil can be defeated with swords, and Boromir should totally have taken the One Ring to overpower Sauron and made himself the benevolent ruler of Middle-earth. Talion gets to live the dream that Boromir had, which incidentally was (in the book) a lie invented by their devil. This is like a Superman story where Superman brutally murders Lex Luthor, and that fixes everything and he's still a hero. It doesn't matter how "realistic" that might be, because it runs completely counter to the themes of the work..."and

"..The dialog is all wrong. Gone is the artful and varied speech of the various peoples of Middle-Earth. In the books, each group of people had their own take on English. Hobbits were simple and folksy. Dwarves were brusque and direct. Wizards and elves were almost Shakespearean in their flowery speech. Humans were varied, going from the quasi-cockney style of Bill Ferny to the nearly-Elven patterns used by kings. In Shadow of Mordor, all of that is lost. People talk in generic "movie medieval", and the lines are bristling with cringeworthy anachronisms..."

http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=24726 (Shamus' blog with a discussion of what stories we would like to see in games, plus lots of other LOTR related content, including a hilarious screencap comic and a Let's Play of LoTR: Online)
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/columns/experienced-points/12479-Shadow-of-Mordor-is-Tawdry-Tolkien-Fanfiction (the article on a gaming news site)


KingTurgon
Rohan


Nov 19 2014, 1:39am

Post #3 of 5 (846 views)
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Just a heads up [In reply to] Can't Post

You need to remove everything up until the second "www" for your link to work.


boldog
Rohan


Nov 26 2014, 5:35am

Post #4 of 5 (813 views)
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I agree [In reply to] Can't Post

That the story is really horrible! But the game is definitely one of the most fun games I've ever played

Azog and Bolg. That is all I can say.............


KingTurgon
Rohan


Nov 26 2014, 6:23am

Post #5 of 5 (862 views)
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I think [In reply to] Can't Post

that you replied to the wrong post Smile

 
 

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