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ollieschmolly's Shadow of Mordor (XBONE)
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| [February 15, 2018 11:12:06 PM]
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I had an epiphany while romping through Mordor this fine afternoon. The game is amazingly fun and I have really enjoyed my experience as a medieval terrorist but the game has a terribly contradictory idea. Throughout my experience, I have been freeing slaves and trying to better the Mordor world through freedom. There is constantly an underlying tone that I am helping my bring freedom to those who are oppressed. However, I see a huge problem as I have also become the oppressor through my doing of “good”. As I use my magical mind abilities to manipulate the nemesis system and take control of orc captains and chieftains I have basically been constructing a slave army to fight for me. Upon his realization, I was like s**t that is actually brilliant game design in the sense of doing good you become evil. It occurred to me though that the game developers may not have done this on purpose. In that case, the game is horribly contradictory. And now thinking about it more the game really is horrible contradictory. From my experience so far the game has not addressed that I am enslaving a race of persons. What is also interesting is I am basically changing the orcs from Sauron's slaves to my own. What is also unfortunate is I only have the choice to enslave the orcs or kill them. Both suck for them and make me seem like an awful person. Basically, Shadow of Mordor makes the player into a magical serial killer terrorist who is trying to enslave for their own personal gain an already enslaved and oppressed minority. My guess is the developers did not think of the game this way. I think it would help a lot if there were other options to negotiate with orcs or to be able to free them, options other than enslavement or death. Don’t get me wrong, orcs are inherently evil. Some of the stuff the nemesis system comes up with is brilliant and definitely bad but who knows how they would function if they were not at Sauron’s mercy. Orcs should still be given a chance. Overall, I think this was a pretty interesting realization and I feel it is a substantial moral flaw to the game.
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| [February 13, 2018 05:03:41 PM]
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Well, today I got to rescue some slaves, killed a lot of orcs, encountered Golem and made some new enemies. Overall, pretty typical day in Mordor. I think I have definitely become more of a low level terrorist with supernatural abilities. They also have a name for me and orcs widely recognize who I am. This must be the type of fame that a serial killer feels. Additionally, I have gone from a small town ax murderer to full on Freddy Krueger. Through combos, I am annihilating entire groups of orcs. I really enjoy the progression so far and the different map areas. The Nemesis system is amazing and fighting my way up the chain is interesting. I am excited to see how I can manipulate this system down the road. I also am looking forward to fighting more of the big boss commanders at the top. Defeating one is really gratifying. My favorite part of the game is definitely the different fort situations. They feel like unique puzzles with options for the solution. I think the game offers a lot of great freedom on how to approach each base. Sometimes I jump in and go Rambo; other times, in more difficult situations, I stealth my way around and cause mischief. I have started to sympathies with the orcs because I am terrorizing them for really no apparent reason. I feel like in reality, I don’t have a justified reason to kill all the orcs. In some capacity, I am committing genocide. I am killing an entire race of creatures. My struggle is with the Black Hand of Sauron and Sauron himself. It would be interesting if the game offered a way for me to sneak pass every orc until I can finally fight my true nemesis. It really is a matter of perspective. In the end, I have just come to accept that I am merely a pawn in a much bigger conflict of which I cannot understand. I must carry out my orders.
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| [February 12, 2018 07:49:50 PM]
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So far the game is great. I love the environment and the gameplay. It is similar to Assassins Creed titles of which I am also a fan. I am so far enjoying the lore though it is pretty typical it makes for a good revenge story. Currently, orcs are more challenging to kill but I feel that is something that will become easier with time as I progress my way through the skill tree. What I find most interesting is how this experience could be interpreted from different perspectives. From my perspective as the player, I am definitely a good guy. My family was killed and that makes it okay for me to kill orcs. However, from the perspective of the orcs, I am basically a batshit crazy terrorist who possesses supernatural abilities. From their perspective, I am the bad guy and they are the good guys. I actually feel bad for the orcs since they don't really have a choice. They are slaves of Sauron and I am there for justified to kill them because Sauron did me wrong. It just seems a little shady. Overall, the gameplay and mechanics are solid. I do feel like not a lot of it is groundbreaking though. The Nemesis System is pretty neat. I enjoy developing that personal narrative experience with my opponents though for them it must be really confusing on how I keep coming back. Honestly, it is just an unfair advantage. It would be hilarious if this game functioned like Minecraft's hardcore mode with no respawn. My guess is then no one would play it since it can be quite challenging at times. I think I am starting to understand why this game is on the list and why it has some conflicting messages.
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ollieschmolly's Shadow of Mordor (XBONE)
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Current Status: Playing
GameLog started on: Monday 12 February, 2018
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