Video Game Review - Middle-Earth: Shadow of War

With the Hobbit trilogy now finished, I personally wasn't sure if Warner Bros. would continue the franchise seeing as the Tolkien estate want nothing to do with their take on Middle-Earth (or more specifically don't want Peter Jackson involved). But fortunately it looks like the stories of Middle-Earth will continue as we get the sequel to one of the best Arkham like games of 2014. So Shadow of War is basically the video game version of the battles seen in the films. The Battle of Helm's Deep, The Battle on Pelennor Fields and The Battle for the Lonely Mountain, just to name a few. Will it live up to those epic and iconic battles? We shall see as I review the latest story in Middle-Earth:

Taking place after Shadow of Mordor, Talion (reprised by legendary voice actor Troy Baker) who is still infused with the spirit of the elf lord Celebrimor (reprised by Alastair Duncan) travel to Mount Doom to forge a new ring of power to be free of Sauron's control. However when the ring is forged, Celebrimor is then held hostage by Shelob (voiced by the Walking Dead's leader of the Scavengers, Pollyanna McIntosh) who frees Celebrimor in exchange for the ring of power. In the end, the three of them have a common enemy in Sauron and our two heroes use their power to dominate Orcs and prepare for war, leading into the events of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Gameplay is largely the same as it was in the previous game as it's set in an action adventure open world environment and being played from a third person perspective. Dominating and killing Orcs are still happening and the game takes advantage of using a Shadow of Mordor save to allow players to transfer their greatest Nemesis and their most loyal ally in the army of Orcs to this game (though no cross-platform support so it has to be PS4-PS4, Xbone-Xbone and Steam-Steam). And then you get your collectibles, towers that reveal new parts of the map and other things too. And then there are the controversial microtransactions which grant you abilities to equip your followers with as well as improving Talion's abilities as well. And there is also multiplayer too.

I will admit, I never actually completed the first game, but had played enough to give it a review. For this game, it is pretty good. It builds upon what made the last game great and takes a more personalised experience to allow players to enjoy Shadow of War their way. But like everyone else, the idea of having microtransactions in a triple A single player game is not a trend that I'm a fan of. I find it to be greedy and it kind of ruins the experience. Other than that, its another great story of Middle-Earth and hopefully not the last. 8/10