Shadow of War
Xbox Reviews

Shadow of War

 Middle-Earth: Shadow of War

With the Nemesis system developer Monolith came up with a great concept for the first Shadow of Mordor in 2014.  For me, that game was the best and most fun experience that used the Lord of The Rings IP. Shadow of War improves the innovating game mechanic and released  one of the best games for 2017. Let’s fight our way through orcs and read more about this sequel in this Shadow of War review. 

This is a reposted review, we had a few reviews that disappeared. We apologize to the readers and PR people for this inconvenience. Content will differ from the previous review, we had no backups. (We have taken steps to prevent this from happening again) 

THE GOOD

  • The Nemesis mechanic is improved with what might be the best new thing about Shadow of War, fortresses. After finishing the game armies begin to invade your land and you must defend them by recruiting armies. Defending and taking over castles or fortresses is an addictive and challenging management metagame, you’ll sink in many hours without you even realising it. Giving lots of replay value for a single player game.
  • An impressive thing about Shadow of War is the scope from the environments and the impressive amount of enemies on-screen. Flying dragons, orcs and other creatures are filling screens, leaving you in awe with all the action. More importantly, this isn’t causing any performance issues.
  • With the lots of enemies that you have to defeat, a fun and working combat system is really important. While selecting what enemy to hit is a little difficult sometimes it is a real joy to reach and execute a high combo.
  • Visually the game is a massive accomplishment on Xbox One X, the draw distance and details in the environment are pretty impressive. The normal Xbox One struggles a little bit with blurry textures but still beautiful enough to be positive.

MIXED FEELINGS

  • I don’t need to tell you that the world from Tolkien has some interesting characters and lore. That in consideration the story for Shadow of War is a little bit disappointing. I’m a huge fan and reader from the Tolkien books, I’m saying this because I realise the missed opportunities. An improvement from Shadow of Mordor though, without a doubt.
  • Despite all the glory and pretty graphics some kind of repetitive feelings starts kicking in pretty fast. You have this grind-aspect that something feels like filler-content, fight this fight that. Using some of the ideas from Assassin’s Creed wasn’t the smartest thing either, I’m kinda tired climbing up a tower to see all the stuff you need to do.

THE BAD

  • Something worse than the stench from Sméagol are the menu’s from Shadow of War. Upgrading your weapons, taking a look at gems, the skill tree, war followers and more is such a complex system that most players won’t be able to use it how it should. Especially the skills menu is such a badly designed feature that it seems to be done on purpose by Sauron.

Developer Monolith has released another great Middle earth game that fans will adore. The fighting system stays fun and the visual detail and scope will impress everyone.

Dev: Monolith Publisher: Warner Bros
Played on: Xbox One X | LifeisXbox received a digital review code, provided by Day One.

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