{"id":8850,"date":"2021-03-26T19:58:16","date_gmt":"2021-03-26T17:58:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/playlab.uta.fi\/?p=8850"},"modified":"2021-03-26T19:58:16","modified_gmt":"2021-03-26T17:58:16","slug":"shadow-of-war-bigger-but-is-it-better","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tuni.fi\/playlab\/shadow-of-war-bigger-but-is-it-better\/","title":{"rendered":"Shadow of War – Bigger, but is it better?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Middle-Earth: Shadow of War (SoW)<\/em> is a sequel to the popular Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor (SoM<\/em>), an Action-Adventure set in Tolkien\u2019s Middle-Earth.\u00a0SoW<\/em> continues the story as a direct sequel. The previous game saw Talion, the protagonist, take revenge for the loss of his family. But now he is on the offensive and going after the Dark Lord Sauron himself. Talion must use a Ring of Power to build an army and take on the Dark Lord.<\/p>\n

Similar to SoM<\/em>, you can explore a multi-region open world completing quests and side activities. In combat, hitting enemies and countering their attacks fills up your Might-meter and when it\u2019s full, you may use one of your abilities. Unfortunately, the audio-visual feedback in combat seems oddly missing at times. Hits and button prompts don\u2019t quite have the same punch and consistency that I enjoyed in SoM<\/em>. While not game-breaking, it did lead to some moments of confusion and frustration. You may also change Talion\u2019s weapons and armor. Loot is dropped by enemies throughout the game, and stronger enemies drop better gear. Frankly, gear mostly boils down to comparing a single number and picking the higher one. Only legendary items have bonuses and they only appear if you intentionally go hunting for them.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Combat. Use X to attack enemies and Y to counter their attacks.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Nemesis system that creates unique orc captains with personalities, strengths, and weaknesses, returns. You may kill, assist, or interfere in these nemesis missions throughout the world to produce different outcomes for the orcs involved. This time you may also better manipulate the orcs and their levels to produce the high-level gear mentioned above. Enemies also have a lot more variety, which adds a welcome challenge to each encounter, keeping the gameplay interesting. Captains may also adapt to your strategies during combat, preventing the player from spamming a single approach to defeat them. This is a welcome addition, as these repeated strategies did break difficulty in SoM<\/em>. SoW<\/em> also offers multiple difficulty options, allowing for more challenge for those who want it.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Player’s inventory with weapons, armor, and bonuses.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Despite these improvements to the overall gameplay, SoW<\/em> does not quite feel like a stronger game. There is more to do than in SoM<\/em>, but with the longer expected playtime and a larger map, many of these new activities started to feel like padding by the end. SoM<\/em> was a good, compact experience with solid mechanics, but SoW<\/em> starts to feel bloated. I found the story a bit more interesting this time around, but it\u2019s still very average with only a few highlight moments and the usual stereotypical characters. Overall, I think SoW<\/em> is a good game that earns my recommendation. But I also think everyone should play SoM<\/em> first, to see if this game is for them or not.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Sauron’s army for one of the regions, with the captains created by the Nemesis System.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

All images were taken in-game by the author.<\/em><\/p>\n

Game:<\/strong> Middle-Earth: Shadow of War
\nDeveloper:<\/strong> Monolith Productions
\nPublisher:<\/strong> Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
\nPlatforms:<\/strong> PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One
\nRelease Date:<\/strong> October 10, 2017
\nGenre:<\/strong> Action-Adventure
\nPEGI Rating:<\/strong>\u00a0 18<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shadow of War attempts to make Shadow of Mordor bigger and better in every way. But the result feels more inflated than improved. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":8855,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[247,246,1335,1332,1334,1354],"class_list":["post-8850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","tag-action","tag-adventure","tag-fantasy","tag-middle-earth","tag-nemesis","tag-tolkien","entry","has-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tuni.fi\/playlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tuni.fi\/playlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tuni.fi\/playlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tuni.fi\/playlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tuni.fi\/playlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8850"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tuni.fi\/playlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8850\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tuni.fi\/playlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tuni.fi\/playlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tuni.fi\/playlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tuni.fi\/playlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}