Middle-Earth: Shadow Of Mordor - 8 Reasons To Be Excited
2. Itll All Feel Very Natural
The similarities between Shadow of Mordor and the other games in the genre are obvious its quite clear that Monolith arent attempting to re-invent the wheel. Instead theyre trying to add unique elements that make SoM stand apart from its competitors, while being very aware of them. For example, the stealth approach is exactly the same as seen in Assassins Creed but the gameplay trailer showed only limited parkour/freerunning just some climbing and rope crossing followed by some good old fashioned hack and slash action. Perhaps that is the intention, as instead of a situation where total stealth is rewarded as in the Arkham games, the idea is that the gamer picks off lone orcs before going in for the kill using combos and environments to their advantage (such as chucking an enemy into a campfire). The combat seems to follow the typical attack/counter pattern of similar games, along with an indicator to show when an enemy is about to attack you. There appears to be some sort of instant kill function which triggers a quick change of camera angle and some slow-mo, and the quicktime events as seen in Tomb Raider are also worked into the combat. The one biggest change to the other games is demonstrated in the released game-play footage when Ratbag the Meat Hoarder realises hes about to be defeated and decides to run away instead of facing the player.
